Messages

1

5x00 Hardware / SL-5500 Memory Limits?

« on: December 06, 2004, 05:58:33 am »

Hi Otto,

I haven't used a microdrive myself (I've now got 1GB SD + 1GB CF in there, which is fine, for now...) and I'm still a newbie to the Z myself, but whilst doing some digging around, I did see quite a few people experimenting with CF microdrives up to about 4GB. Support for them may be dependent on the OS/drivers you are using though.

From what I remember of the postings I read, microdrives will flatten the Z battery in a relatively short period of time, so I'd stick with SD and CF memory if you need battery life and only seriously consider a microdrive for use when you've got mains (or car-supplied) power but no access to a desktop/laptop (if you've got access to a desktop/laptop computer, a network accessible hard disk would probably make more sense).

Hope that helps,

John.

2

Windows Issues / Intellisync problems

« on: November 05, 2004, 08:39:37 am »

Hi Guys,

Sorry, if this is the wrong forum to post this to - I'm still a bit of a newbie here...

I'm having all sorts of problems trying to get my SL-5500 to sync with Outlook 2000 on my XP machine (sad I know, but for the moment I need Outlook compatibility).

I've tried various combinations of OpenZaurus/Opie and Sharp's v3.1.3 ROM on the Z with Intellisync (an earlier version and 1.4E) and even Qtopia Desktop on the PC side.

Generally, I can get a TCP/IP connection set-up, such that I can ping the Z from the PC and vice versa without any apparent problems but when it comes to getting the PIMs to sync I generally get errors indicating that the connection isn't working. The nearest I've got so far, is to use OpenZaurus 3.5.1 and Opie 1.1.6 (IIRC) with Qtopia Desktop on the PC (which curiously acts as a conduit for Outlook - not quite what I expected) - that partially synced (Categories & ToDo list seems to be downloaded okay, Calendar/Appointments partially synced (apparently only some repeating appointments but no single events got downloaded to the Z), Contacts were never successfully downloaded at all (perhaps because there are a lot of records (1000+)).

I really need to sit down and work-out which versions I've tried with what and what the problems were in each case, but before I spend the next week trying to
try every conceivable variation. Has anyone got any suggestions for combinations that work/don't work?

Any help would be much appreciated!!!  

Thanks,

John.

3

5x00 Hardware / SL-5500 Memory Limits?

« on: November 04, 2004, 04:52:22 am »

Thanks for the explanation shdwdrgn (ShadowDragon?).

Since, as you say, the SD card is serially addressed, then it seems reasonable to suppose that the limitations are down to the driver (since the device would generally expect an address length capable of addressing its full size). However, this implies that the driver knows how long the address field must be for the particular device in question (i.e. must know the size of the memory). I haven't played with SD devices, so I don't know if there's a standard way of finding this out (it may be in the SD spec somewhere), but if the driver needs to do this in different ways for each manufacturer/device or needs to infer the size from some sort of device ID, then the drivers would have to be updated from time to time, to add new devices/sizes to its list of supported devices. So, it is quite possible that the initial drivers only supported devices and address spaces up to the maximum device size known at the time they were written (e.g. 128MB or 256MB).
Having said that, since 128MB and 256MB would require 27 and 28 bits of address respectively anyway, the address parameters would almost certainly be passed as 32-bit unsigned (or possibly signed) integers, giving address spaces of up to 4GB (or 2GB if signed integers are used and -ve values are ignored (sometimes -1 is used as a special value)). So, the interface probably wouldn't need to be changed to support devices up to 4GB (or 2GB). However, after this limit is reached, the interface would no doubt need to changed (e.g. to use a 64-bit address or some sort of paging system).

The CF cards may be slightly different, in that the CF slot supports microdrives (which currently appear to go up to 5.5 or even 8GB) and may be treated more like disk drives than memory, with different addressing mechanisms (especially if, as you say, the CF spec. says sizes up to 127GB are supported), although I haven't seen any indication that anyone has got anything above 4GB working with the Z (although some people appear to be trying)).

Thanks for the advice about moving away from the Sharp ROM. I've already switched to OpenZaurus 3.5.1 with Opie 1.1.6, as I wanted more Open Source Linux compatibility (although some of the Sharp supplied applications might be nice to try to retrofit once I've got everything working as I want it).

Now, to try to figure-out what software I need on the PC to sync the upgraded Z with LookOut!...  
Cheers,

John.
(having fun and learning lots along the way...   )

4

5x00 Hardware / SL-5500 Memory Limits?

« on: November 02, 2004, 06:07:16 pm »

Thanks for the help Mitch and Tumnus.

I don't quite understand Sharp Service's comment about the limits for SD and CF cards (perhaps the limits are what they are able to supply).

Sorry about the confusion about use of 'RAM' instead of 'memory' - I used the same terminology as Sharp's reply. Both SD and CF cards are strictly speaking Flash ROMs (at least as I understand it).

Anyway, as the limits seem to be imposed by the filing system used, rather than any hardware issues (e.g. partial address decoding within the Z), I'll go ahead and upgrade the SD and CF cards as much as I can within reason/budget.

Thanks again.

John.  

5

5x00 Hardware / SL-5500 Memory Limits?

« on: November 02, 2004, 08:07:08 am »

Hi!

This is a bit of a Newbie question, so apologies if I should have posted it elsewhere.

I've just bought a second-hand SL-5500 with a 64MB SD card and a 32MB CF card.

I would like to expand the system memory/storage considerably but I'm not sure what limits there are on the size of SD/CF memory I can use. I don't want to spend lots of money on cards if (a) the Z can't use them at all or ( the Z can only address a small part of them.

I contacted Sharp Service and was told that the limits are 128 and 192 for SD RAM and CF RAM respectively. I presume that these figures are in MB and only apply to memory (RAM/ROM) rather than storage (disk) devices.
However, this doesn't seem to stack-up with various comments I've read on the ZUG mailing lists and other places, which seem to indicate that people are using up to 1GB SD card and 512MB/1GB CF cards and also using up to 4GB CF microdrives.  

Is there a FAQ somewhere which details what the limits are (if any) and what devices do/don't work with the Z?

Many thanks in advance,

John (slightly confused but fascinated with the idea of Linux of a handheld!)