NX70 and CF storage cards?

CLIE Tokyo is reporting that the Sony CLIE PEG-NX70 and PEG-NX60 do indeed use a standard Compact Flash slot. However, Sony will not be shipping the devices with drivers to support the standard CF IDE bus. Other manufacturers should be able to provide such drivers, however.

Compact Flash storage cards use the same IDE bus used by PCMCIA cards (PC Cards) and most desktop hard drives. Generally a manufacturer releasing a handheld with Compact Flash support will include a driver for the OS to be able to use standard storage cards from almost any manufacturer, just as a desktop OS includes drivers for any IDE hard drive. Sony will not be providing any such drivers, however. They will only provide drivers for their Sony Wireless Ethernet card. Third party manufacturers can write drivers for their cards, however, which may or may not be card-specific, depending on how well tested they are. Compact Flash solid-state cards are currently available in sizes up to 1 GB, and are generally the cheapest cards on the market. The 1 GB IBM Microdrive is currently the price/capacity leader in the small formfactor storage market. By comparison, Sony Memory Stick cards are available in sizes up to 128 MB.">

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	NX70 and CF storage cards?	By Larry Garfield, Monday 21 October 2002

Enthusiast site CLIE Tokyo is reporting that the Sony CLIE PEG-NX70 and PEG-NX60 do indeed use a standard Compact Flash slot. However, Sony will not be shipping the devices with drivers to support the standard CF IDE bus. Other manufacturers should be able to provide such drivers, however.

Compact Flash storage cards use the same IDE bus used by PCMCIA cards (PC Cards) and most desktop hard drives. Generally a manufacturer releasing a handheld with Compact Flash support will include a driver for the OS to be able to use standard storage cards from almost any manufacturer, just as a desktop OS includes drivers for any IDE hard drive. Sony will not be providing any such drivers, however. They will only provide drivers for their Sony Wireless Ethernet card. Third party manufacturers can write drivers for their cards, however, which may or may not be card-specific, depending on how well tested they are. Compact Flash solid-state cards are currently available in sizes up to 1 GB, and are generally the cheapest cards on the market. The 1 GB IBM Microdrive is currently the price/capacity leader in the small formfactor storage market. By comparison, Sony Memory Stick cards are available in sizes up to 128 MB.