Travel floppy for HPC?

If possible I really could use one for my Jornada 720. I hate lugging around my bulky battery hogger when traveling and at meetings, so I am hoping that my Jornada could replace my laptop when traveling.

If anyone knows of a product this would be very helpful to me. Remember my Jornada lacks a USB port, so none of the USB solutions would help. My Jornada has a CF drive, but I need a solution that will work in any computer, and floppies seem to be available everywhere. I need a simple solution where I can just hand a office clerk a disk with office files in as little time as a minute.

I see that the 200LX and other DOS palmtops have such available, so it would make sense that a newer palmtop would also.


Thank you,


Jason

Any floppy disk drive solution for your HPC would need to be PCMCIA. Accurite used to make a Travel Floppy, even a LS-120 version, but they were very expensive. I think they are still available....

http://www.accurite.com/Travel120.html

Yikes, $270! For other solutions, you might check out an article I wrote for HPC a while back. I think it's called "Printing and File Transfers on the Road," or something like that. It suggests some much cheaper alternatives--though, granted, more complicated than a handy floppy.

Jake

How about just buying a simply CF card reader like this one on eBay: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=43449&item=7516423277&rd=1

or like this one:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=43449&item=7511991436&rd=1

All you would have to do is pull your CF card from the 720 and stick it in the adapter, and then stick the adapter into any desktop USB port to read the files.

Rich

Edited by Rich Hawley 2005-05-16 7:07 PM

That's what I do. Works great, that second one is the perfect size, not too big.

Thanks but this will not work in a office where I need to quickly hand a file to the clerk on disk. The USB feature also will not work in all scanarios.

Just today I was in a office and was meeting with someone whose PC was running NT 3.5.1 which lacked USB. However a floppy disk drive was there. The entire company is still running NT 3.5. It would cost them way too much to upgrade. If I had to make modifications to my Word file, it would have been a pain as my laptop was not on me at the time.

There are floppy adapters for some types of memory cards.
SanDisk FlashPath is a floppy adapter for SmartMedia cards, but it is read only, so you can transfer one way but not the other.
Sony also makes a floppy to Memory Stick adapter.

And then you can use these memory cards on the Jornada with a PC Card adapter.

I used a Olympus fashPath adapter (called Camedia Floppydisk Adapter) sometimes on various Windows systems (95, 98, NT). It is for smartmedia cards.
Readind and writing is possible but requires installation of a driver software.
(but its slow)
Limitation of the one I own is maximum 64MB SmartMedia Cards.

On HP J710 a standard SM-Adapter works fine.

On Systems supporting USB-Memorydrives I prefer a USB Card-Reader (Speed-reasons)

regards
Claus

Not sure I'd like to be handing my adapters to anyone and then walking off anyway. You really put some restrictions on this scenario Jason. About the only way out I see it now is for you to dump the Jornada and buy a machine that will support floppy drives...like my 900C

Or just break down and spend some big bucks for a floppy drive that will work with your Jornada...

Rich

Jason,

I think I have the answer to your problem.

I've never used one of these personally:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=41993&item=6768644965&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW

I have used one of these (the Sony branded version) and it worked with CE:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=42191&item=6767553337&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW

You'd need both adapters and a memory stick.

Jason,

So even e-mailing your file as attachment is out of the question? Then again, I guess it might be if you were traveling in a place that had no dial-up service for your built-in modem.

Hmm,
Jake

Yes it would be, and so would all the other options mentioned here. I appreciate the advice, but one must admit that some lack traveling experience. When you travel you need a machine that has access to media that will work in all scanarios.

I have been in offices where a personal floppies is out of the question as well as any other media (since this government agency is afraid of viruses). So it is encouraged to print hard copies of files or email when I hand them documents. They accept email, since their employees all use Pine, which cannot receive viruses very easily. The government is smart, and not stupid to bother with Outlook.

I have been in offices where nothing exists but a floppy, and no a modem to modem connection, or anything else will not work.

Looks like buying this expensive floppy will be the trick, but I wish I could get one on ebay for half price. The 200LX users can!


Jason

If a floppy is truly your only alternative, I would drop the bucks for a new one. Floppy drives are always problematic--I went through two on my last laptop. God knows what some guy on ebay has been using his floppy drive for, a doorstop, a coaster. IMHO, too many fragile parts to take a chance on something previously owned.

Jake

Jason, why wouldn't C:Amie's solution work?