CF extender

[ThC]

Can you imagine only being able to surf on a laptop by removing the hard drive and only having a floppy disk to save stuff on?

Gee ... tell me were you did buy those 1Gb floppys (I think i've seen SD cards up to 1Gb)  
okay they're -REALLY- expansive but so are microdrives (except for those fast enough to buy the old muvo from creative) and so are CF cards (maybe a little less expansive for the same capacity true but what would be the price for such a sleave ?) I'm not telling I would'nt want to see such a thing ... I'd love to have my microdrive plugged in and having wifi in the same time ... but we can't say the Zaurus really NEED that to be complete (and we can't say 6000's are better because they can have 2 CF slots)
BTW I totally agree with you as it could help making the Z an even better palmtop

[coolass]

 I like dabbling in hardware and I have a few things in the works. Time permitting I'll have Pics and a finished product soon. I have my own version of an expansion sled. Using a Lexar six in one reader atttached to the usb, I can load as much memory as possible. At one time I used a 4 gb microdrive{a friends} 512 meg sd card {both in the z } a 256 meg cf,256 meg sd and a 128 meg mem stick. That's over 5.5 gigs in one small machine with no heavy power drain. Of course I had to modify a few things but it worked and a small piece of elcro attached the two units. Cxxx owners could use the Ratoc cf to usb adapter and a hub to get the same results.

[nianderson]

looking forward to that coolass.

[ThC]

coolass : btw your solution is only to expand memory ... you can't have a WiFi card plugged in a CF usb reader ... and I don't remember seeing such a reader with 2 CF slots either ... tell me if I'm wrong, did you manage to use a WiFi card in your USB reader plugged on the Z ?

[ev1l]

Another option that occurs to me would be for a third party (or even Sharp) to market an add on battery cover that has usb, bluetooth and 802.11 kit in the cover with a small ribbon cable that connects either to the CF slot or to the Sharp proprietary port.  Personally I'd opt for using the Sharp proprietary port since I can always sync via ethernet.  I don't think we'd have much of a problem with the antenna since it could run the length of the two long sides of the batter cover.  I think reception would be just fine.  You could put a mini-usb connector along the back side of the cover.  While I'm at it, add a 10/100 card with dongle.

Most pocket PC's have an extension sled that does just that.
It's about the only thing I'm jealous of. Oh well.

[coolass]

coolass : btw your solution is only to expand memory ... you can't have a WiFi card plugged in a CF usb reader ... and I don't remember seeing such a reader with 2 CF slots either ... tell me if I'm wrong, did you manage to use a WiFi card in your USB reader plugged on the Z ?

No Thc ,nice name by the way, I have an sl6000 so I have no need for wifi cards, but I believe that since cf readers are bi-directional and just an extention so to speak,if so wifi should work but you might have to mount it. The reader I'm using is the Lexar 6 in 1 it accepts CF,SD,MMC,SmartMedia,MemorySticks and XD but you can only have three in at any given time. CF also includes micro drives.