Turn G1 into a card reader?

[glitter]

Plenty of utilities for downloading images, but has anyone ever tried turning the G1 into a generic card reader? After all, it's fast enough, and it can upload just fine (ZoomBrowser, firmware updates etc).

I share a 1gig microdrive with a PocketPC, but it runs essentially at serial speeds, so uploading large files is a nightmare. Buying a USB card reader seems pointless - more money and another USB port tied up. The G1 could do the job nicely.

Hell, I'd happily write the util and make it freely available, if only Canon made their SDKs available to non-businesses... anyone fancing 'leaking' their SDKs anonymously? Or letting me work with them, and then releasing the util on their site?

gl@ntlworld.com

[LaptopPop]

Good thought - one problem though:

The USB port directly on cameras is much slower than the USB port seperate card readers - even el-cheapo seperate card readers. Almost all cameras try to support both RS232 and USB with a single interface to save power/weight/space - but this usually means the USB implementation, while "legal USB" runs slower than a "pure" implementation.

In terms of the Microdrive - that little beastie is unique. It has longer start/stop times, but once it gets going, the transfer rate is incredible. The *best* way to get the data off of a Microdrive is to use an external card reader through a FireWire interface. This will give you around 3.5 megs per second. DPreview.com had a review of a FireWire external card reader with timings -- the Microdrive was MUCH faster than any of the flash memory cards.

-lee-

[glitter]

re. speed, it's not that slow on my G1. Timing a 2meg RAW transfer takes (roughly) 4 secs, so that's about 500K/sec - according to various sources, USB readers only give in the range of 500-800K. So it's close enough to be useful.

Re. microdrive, I didn't realise it was that much faster - that makes Firewire more attractive. However, it's not portable, unless you're willing to install the expansion card on every PC you meet. So I'll probably look into that for home use (thanks), but a 'G1 reader' would still be useful...

[LaptopPop]

glitter wrote:
re. speed, it's not that slow on my G1. Timing a 2meg RAW transfer takes (roughly) 4 secs, so that's about 500K/sec - according to various sources, USB readers only give in the range of 500-800K. So it's close enough to be useful.


Wow - pretty darn good. I guess the G1 is one of the few cameras with a decent USB implementation! :)

Thanks for the numbers, and good luck getting some data!
-lee-