John,
re: toast
I didn't bring my 35 mm film camera on my last trip. I am coming to realize that I am less dependent on it and feel more and more comfortable with my digital camera. Having said that, I would feel more secure bringing a standard film camera to a special event like a wedding or a once-in-a-lifetime vacation to an exotic place.
re: write speeds
SanDisk is more concerned with data integrity and product reliability than write speed. In short, "speed kills". I feel that current product performance is adequate and inadequacies are more related to the digital camera brand than the flash card brand.
SanDisk did do a co-licensing deal with SSTI. The write speed enhancements are explained in this link...
techweb.com
The key to high speed is what SST's product marketing manager Samuel Nakhimovsky calls a "performance formula" that is based largely on the design of the ATA controller. The first part of that formula is a large dual-port SRAM buffer inside the ATA controller, "so you can write to the buffer at the same time that the buffer is writing to flash," Nakhimovsky said.
Also, a direct-memory-access channel carries data from the buffer to the flash, eliminating controller overhead, while an intelligent-flash file system writes data files to flash memory "in a sequence that gives the best performance," he added. Other features of SST's cards include a power-management unit and dynamic-memory management.
re: OT
The potential applicability of high capacity ROM and RAM flash cards is expressed below. As I previously posted, SanDisk will try to get the SD Memory Card (several hundred megabyte capacity?) below a $20 price point, and perhaps as low as a $10 price point by 2005. Infineon expresses similar optimism for competitively price ROM flash.
Unlike other flash cards, the Multi-MediaCard accepts mask ROM as well as flash memory. The card was also designed to carry one-time-programmable(OTP) memory, but that option "went by the boards as prices dropped" for flash, said Jeffry Davis, senior marketing manager at Infineon, San Jose. Moreover, a fully automated manufacturing process and low-cost seven-pin serial interface (features drawn from the company's smart-card experience)
keep manufacturing costs "in the dirt range," he said.
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