Help me use my 2GB CompactFlash!
Damian Walker
My brother gave me a 2GB CF card last weekend. I decided to put it in
my Series 5mx, as that's the machine I use the most. But I've always
been happy with a 64MB card up till now. EPOC software is so compact
that I've rarely used more than half of that amount. So what can I use
all that space for on a 5mx?
I've partitioned the card into four sections: 64MB for applications,
64MB for games, 384MB for static or rarely-changing data I might use
regularly. That leaves a partition of 1.5GB to find a use for. I save
regularly updated files on C: and use a trio of 16MB cards for backup,
so it would be pointless using the 1.5GB partition for those things.
I thought about putting all the downloads from the EPOC32 Games
database on there (about 60MB), or perhaps an encycopedia, as someone a
while back mentioned there's a downloadable Wikipedia available. I
could put a good amount of Project Gutenberg on there. But all these
are just filling the space for the sake of it.
Are there any other suggestions for ~1GB clumps of data that could be
useful on a Psion?
--
Damian Walker
The World at Strife - newly released - psion.snigfarp.karoo.net
Oliver N. Kuehlwein
> Hello everyone,
>
> My brother gave me a 2GB CF card last weekend. I decided to put it in
> my Series 5mx, as that's the machine I use the most. But I've always
> been happy with a 64MB card up till now. EPOC software is so compact
> that I've rarely used more than half of that amount. So what can I use
> all that space for on a 5mx?
>
> I've partitioned the card into four sections: 64MB for applications,
> 64MB for games, 384MB for static or rarely-changing data I might use
> regularly. That leaves a partition of 1.5GB to find a use for. I save
> regularly updated files on C: and use a trio of 16MB cards for backup,
> so it would be pointless using the 1.5GB partition for those things.
Did you partition your card with linux?
>
> I thought about putting all the downloads from the EPOC32 Games
> database on there (about 60MB), or perhaps an encycopedia, as someone a
> while back mentioned there's a downloadable Wikipedia available. I
> could put a good amount of Project Gutenberg on there. But all these
> are just filling the space for the sake of it.
>
> Are there any other suggestions for ~1GB clumps of data that could be
> useful on a Psion?
>
You can store all the maps from Tomtoms Citymaps. The worst part will
be to extract them from the 2 cds.
Please give us some feedback if you really accomplished to install a
recent version of Wikipedia. My impression was that there isn't a
version for Epoc any longer.
--
Oliver
Frank Peelo
> Damian Walker <dam...@snigfarp.karoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>Hello everyone,
>>
>>My brother gave me a 2GB CF card last weekend. I decided to put it in
>>my Series 5mx, as that's the machine I use the most. But I've always
>>been happy with a 64MB card up till now. EPOC software is so compact
>>that I've rarely used more than half of that amount. So what can I use
>>all that space for on a 5mx?
>>
>>I've partitioned the card into four sections: 64MB for applications,
>>64MB for games, 384MB for static or rarely-changing data I might use
>>regularly. That leaves a partition of 1.5GB to find a use for. I save
>>regularly updated files on C: and use a trio of 16MB cards for backup,
>>so it would be pointless using the 1.5GB partition for those things.
>
>
> Did you partition your card with linux?
Do you use Psion CF cards with Linux?
I have Mandriva 2008.0, and the vfat driver seems to have problems with
cards formatted on the Psion. A 512MB card which was readable in Windows
and on a MAC had garbled directories under Mandriva. I was surprised;
don't know if the Psion has a slightly different format to what the
linux driver expects, or if there might be a problem with the card.
Frank
Damian Walker
> Did you partition your card with linux?
Yes. It took a few tries, once because of my error and once because
Atelier's EDU trashed the partitions it didn't like. I've since found
that it doesn't like partitions whose size isn't a number in the binary
system (i.e. 1, 2, 4, 8...) so I'll remember not to let it loose on my
384M and 1.5G partitions again.
> You can store all the maps from Tomtoms Citymaps. The worst part will
> be to extract them from the 2 cds.
I thought about putting more maps from TomTom's old Street Planner (
which I bought a while ago) but decided against it as I don't travel
that often, and the maps are getting out of date now. What exactly is
Citymaps?
> Please give us some feedback if you really accomplished to install a
> recent version of Wikipedia. My impression was that there isn't a
> version for Epoc any longer.
I haven't yet found one, but to be fair I haven't looked since I'm not
yet sure what I'm going to do with the partition.
Had Gutenberg published more of their books in PDF format I might have
put some of those on the card; the TXT files will more than fill it but
I find unformatted plain text files uncomfortable to read. I keep
meaning to look into EPOC compatible e-books but other things
constantly take up my time at the moment. Hopefully I should get
chance to look further during this week.
Damian Walker
> Do you use Psion CF cards with Linux?
Yes. I have the same problem of garbled directories as you do much of
the time. You can get around this if you have the mtools package ("...
a collection of utilities for accessing MS-DOS files ...") installed.
This has been installed with all Linux versions I've used so far,
though I'm still on Fedora 4. The included tools mdir and mcopy have
worked flawlessly with all the cards I've tried.
Damian Walker
> Latest version is from 2003 and I find it still pretty good, even in
> London.
Thanks, I'll have to take a look at that, then. Is it possible to
install later CAB maps onto it, or are you stuck with the ones supplied?
> I wrote a program to convert the install
> packages into .SIS files. (Thus meaning you don't have to squeeze them
> down the serial link from a Windows machine.)
I would probably stick them straight onto the CF from the Linux box,
which would be the easiest way.
Damian Walker
So far I like the mapping idea, but not being a driver or a regular
visitor to other cities, I'll probably settle for keeping my home city
and environs on there, and install other cities ahead of a journey.
Not having found an encyclopaedia yet, I've started to download some
electronic books. I'm looking forward to a time when Project Gutenberg
has the full 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica available for download in
text format. For usefulness it doesn't match a modern encyclopaedia
but I'm often searching for historical information.
I found a neat little reader, ERead, which reformats text into a fully-
justified 2-column format which is nice to read. It simulates a 2-page
spread a bit like Agenda. Unfortunately, when it saves bookmark files,
it doesn't re-read them from the CF ("File corrupt"). I don't remember
whether I tested this from C: or not. It may be a CF issue or possibly
an issue about the size of the original text (the two I've transferred
so far are 1.5MB and 3MB in size).
What's the best reader generally available? Contrary to my earlier
thoughts I'm now interested in plain text books, especially if there's
another more reliable reader that can reformat those books in an
attractive way. I seem to remember one reader program has a sideways
mode.
Frank Peelo
> Frank Peelo <f32pn...@eircom.net> wrote:
>
>
>>Do you use Psion CF cards with Linux?
>
>
> Yes. I have the same problem of garbled directories as you do much of
> the time. You can get around this if you have the mtools package ("...
> a collection of utilities for accessing MS-DOS files ...") installed.
> This has been installed with all Linux versions I've used so far,
> though I'm still on Fedora 4. The included tools mdir and mcopy have
> worked flawlessly with all the cards I've tried.
You don't need to mount the drive with vfat first? Good. Another thing
for me to google over the weekend...
Strange that there would be a linux package which successfully reads
vfat CF cards, if the vfat driver doesn't. I would have thought the same
bugs would be in both.
Thanks
Frank
Michael J Davis
I download Gutenberg books, compress them for convenience in a little
program by Andrew Giddings called TCR (PC based simple multipass
routine) that gives around 50% compression,
http://www.cix.co.uk/~gidds/Software/TCR.html
then in Psion use e-book to read them.
See... www.geocities.com/ebookepoc/
...But I'm not sure if this version is suitable for the Psion 5mx.
This is conveniently in column format, paging by means of the shift key.
It is simple to read single handed using ones thumb to turn pages. I
always have a book on it and yank it out whenever I have a wait.
Somewhere I have the original ebook program archived...!
<Arrrgh - now on a hard disk removed from the old computer and
physically archived!!!>
Mike
--
Michael J Davis
<Please note that the Reply-To: address will remain in use for at least 30
days, but the sender and from addresses are not valid.>
<><
Damian Walker
> Oh, I assumed you knew your way around Psion software!!
Only the games. I haven't been much interested in electronic texts
until I got the new CompactFlash, so I didn't pay much attention to the
software.
> http://www.cix.co.uk/~gidds/Software/TCR.html
Thanks, I've downloaded that. Though at the moment I'm not much in
need of using compression!
> See... www.geocities.com/ebookepoc/
> ....But I'm not sure if this version is suitable for the Psion 5mx.
I've had eBook installed on the 5mx, but since my last post here I
discovered MobiPocket reader, which seems to do everything that eBook
does. I haven't checked whether it reads TCRs though.
> This is conveniently in column format, paging by means of the shift key.
By column format do you mean the mode where you hold the Psion sideways?
Unfortunately ebook, at least the version I had, only did it in a
left-handed way which I found a bit of getting used to. MobiPocket
lets you choose orientation, as well as having the 2-column format that
ERead used.
Damian Walker
> You don't need to mount the drive with vfat first?
It occurs to me now that I might have automount enabled on the CF slot,
but I'm not sure about that - mtools might be reading the file system
directly. I do have to change the permissions on /dev/sda1 (to sda4 on
the partitioned card) each time I insert a card, as by default only
root can read or write to the card. That's something I need to look
into the mtools documentation for.
Damian Walker
> I have no access to later maps, so I don't know. If the format hasn't
> changed too much...?
Thanks, I'll do a bit of googling to find out what I can.
Michael J Davis
>
>> Oh, I assumed you knew your way around Psion software!!
>
>Only the games. I haven't been much interested in electronic texts
>until I got the new CompactFlash, so I didn't pay much attention to the
>software.
>
>> http://www.cix.co.uk/~gidds/Software/TCR.html
>
>Thanks, I've downloaded that. Though at the moment I'm not much in
>need of using compression!
>
>> See... www.geocities.com/ebookepoc/
>> ....But I'm not sure if this version is suitable for the Psion 5mx.
>
>I've had eBook installed on the 5mx, but since my last post here I
>discovered MobiPocket reader, which seems to do everything that eBook
>does. I haven't checked whether it reads TCRs though.
>
>> This is conveniently in column format, paging by means of the shift key.
>
>By column format do you mean the mode where you hold the Psion sideways?
>Unfortunately ebook, at least the version I had, only did it in a
>left-handed way which I found a bit of getting used to.
Funny that, I find holding it in my left hand with the thumb hovering
over the spacebar works very well.
>MobiPocket
>lets you choose orientation, as well as having the 2-column format that
>ERead used.
ISTR the two column format, I prefer the single column of ebook. (And
change the type size for the lighting conditions.)
Chaq'un a son gout!
Damian Walker
> Funny that, I find holding it in my left hand with the thumb hovering
> over the spacebar works very well.
Perhaps I should have said "right handed way": it had me holding the
Psion in my right hand, using the left thumb to press the space bar.
Very odd. Maybe there's a later version somewhere.
> ISTR the two column format, I prefer the single column of ebook. (And
> change the type size for the lighting conditions.)
I'll probably end up using both. The sideways mode is good for sitting
on the bus or train, on curling up on the sofa, but the 2-column mode
will be better when you've got a flat surface to put the Psion on.
Oliver N. Kuehlwein
> I thought about putting more maps from TomTom's old Street Planner (
> which I bought a while ago) but decided against it as I don't travel
> that often, and the maps are getting out of date now. What exactly is
> Citymaps?
Citymaps is the latest version of Street Planner for the Psion World.
Yes, the maps are old but I have used a variety of them lately with
only minor problems. As my 5MX is in allways in my pocket I can't
forget the maps at home.
> put some of those on the card; the TXT files will more than fill it but
> I find unformatted plain text files uncomfortable to read. I keep
> meaning to look into EPOC compatible e-books but other things
> constantly take up my time at the moment. Hopefully I should get
> chance to look further during this week.
Try the MobiPocket reader.
--
Oliver
Oliver N. Kuehlwein
>
> >I thought about putting more maps from TomTom's old Street Planner (
> >which I bought a while ago) but decided against it as I don't travel
> >that often, and the maps are getting out of date now. What exactly is
> >Citymaps?
>
> London.
>
> ..cab files, you can even install the maps without having to go through
> the official installer - I wrote a program to convert the install
> packages into .SIS files. (Thus meaning you don't have to squeeze them
> down the serial link from a Windows machine.)
Excellent! I'll give it a try. Until now I had to pick the individual
maps from the temp directory to transfer them via my card reader/writer.
--
Oliver
Damian Walker
> Try the MobiPocket reader.
Thanks Oliver, since I made the post to which you replied, I discovered
MobiPocket Reader and it seems to do everything I want.
ScienceT...@googlemail.com
Hello,
First time posting here :)
I can solve your problem but would you be able to solve mine?! I'm a
Teacher and find the Psion 5MX invaluable. I have Wikipedia, Oxford
English Dictionary, KJV Bible, Databases of chemicals, experiments,
pictures of periodic tables, websites complete textbooks on my 2GB CF
card (via TomeRaider), a few dozen pdf's (Psion manuals, textbooks,
etc and some Science Video clips and lots of powerpoints / resources /
templates that I use in the classroom routinely. I simply either print
them off via the serial / IR connection or take the CF out to be read
by a PC... until last week... that is :(
Well, I backed up the CF card onto my PC (fortunately) but now the
Psion can't read the CF disk (unfortunately). I've tried formatting
via FAT16 (FAT12 only supports up to 16MB and FAT32 won't work at
all). The Psion can still read CF disks as my very old 16MB one still
works like a dream.
Please help as I'm stuck! How did you partition your CF card? Probably
the Psion couldn't make use of a 2GB CF card because it wasn't
partitioned to start with?
Please help!
Thanks in advance...
Damian Walker
> Please help as I'm stuck! How did you partition your CF card? Probably
> the Psion couldn't make use of a 2GB CF card because it wasn't
> partitioned to start with?
Sorry about the late reply. I partitioned the disk with the fdisk
utility under Linux. I believe the same utility is still available
under the XP command line; whether it's still available in Vista is
anybody's guess. The precise instructions will obviously vary
depending upon your OS and what partitioning tool you have.
--
Damian Walker - psion.cyningstan.org.uk
For email replies replace spam with psion
ScienceT...@googlemail.com
On Dec 8 2008, 5:52 pm, s...@cyningstan.org.uk (Damian Walker) wrote:
Hello,
Thanks for the reply. I downloaded Ubuntu Linux Live CD and this
allowed formatting of Compact Flash Cards as Windows XP and Vista are
a bit backwards! It's funny how old tech like the Psion was able to
read partitioned CF cards but Windows wasn't! I have now a 4GB CF card
and will try to get all my Teacher materials on that at the ready to
print. I see my Psion as a vital tool, but will it be able to read
more than 512MB drives at a time?
Thanks again,
Matt.
Oliver N. Kuehlwein
> print. I see my Psion as a vital tool, but will it be able to read
> more than 512MB drives at a time?
My current drive D: is 977MB big. No problems at all for some years now.
--
Oliver
Frank Peelo
I have a 4GB card. The 5mx can only see one partition on it, and that
partition can only be up to 2GB. So ISTM the limit is about 2GB.
I did read that the Psion (running EPOC) could see multiple partitions,
but I didn't get that to work. Maybe it's only the Netbook that could
read more partitions.
And be careful using the CF card under Linux. Linux seems to be OK with
small Psion-formatted partitions, and larger devices formatted
elsewhere. But with my 2GB Psion-formatted card, the normal (vfat)
driver in Linux had problems. Damian pointed me at the mtools suite,
which works fine, but is command line. I don't know what the problem is.
The Psion predates FAT32, so maybe the Psion is doing something which
became unsupported when FAT32 was introduced.
Frank
Oliver N. Kuehlwein
> Oliver N. Kuehlwein wrote:
> > ScienceT...@googlemail.com <ScienceT...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> >
> >>print. I see my Psion as a vital tool, but will it be able to read
> >>more than 512MB drives at a time?
> >
> >
> > My current drive D: is 977MB big. No problems at all for some years now.
>
> I have a 4GB card. The 5mx can only see one partition on it, and that
> partition can only be up to 2GB. So ISTM the limit is about 2GB.
Yes, that's what I read.
>
> I did read that the Psion (running EPOC) could see multiple partitions,
> but I didn't get that to work. Maybe it's only the Netbook that could
> read more partitions.
>
Shortage of time prevented me in trying a big CF card, now that they
are dirt cheap. On the other side there is still the op's problem what
data should be used to fill all the space. Free space on my drive D: is
399MB. I experimented with some big databases (PsiDat and Powerbase)
but found out that there seem to be other limitations than free
diskspace.
> And be careful using the CF card under Linux. Linux seems to be OK with
> small Psion-formatted partitions, and larger devices formatted
> elsewhere. But with my 2GB Psion-formatted card, the normal (vfat)
> driver in Linux had problems. Damian pointed me at the mtools suite,
> which works fine, but is command line. I don't know what the problem is.
> The Psion predates FAT32, so maybe the Psion is doing something which
> became unsupported when FAT32 was introduced.
Which linux do you use?
--
Oliver