Question Concerning SRAM PCMCIA cards and modern computers.

[PianoMan343]

Hello, everyone!

So, to make a long story short, my employer uses PCMCIA SRAM cards to update certain equipment we have on a bi-annual basis. (Dinosaurs, I know, but they've been working for years and it would be almost prohibitive to upgrade to new equipment) We use an external OmniDrive USB reader to update these cards with the appropriate data. One year ago, we had 12 of these cards functioning. Six months ago, we started having issues accessing these drives. The SRAM cards would either display as unformatted or not appear at all. (At this point, I should address that the SRAM cards we have have a non-removeable internal battery. We do have a charger, but it's functionality has been called into question) And when attempting to format, Windows will display a capacity much higher than what should even be on the card (Saying the capacity is 64mb when in reality only hold 2mb) We are down to no operational cards.

What equipment we have on hand:
2x OmniDrive PCMCIA-USB readers (One of which we know is bad)
1x Ancient Laptop with a PCMCIA reader built in
15-20x PCMCIA Card, maybe 2-4 of those are Flash storage, the rest are SRAM (We've been experimenting with different cards from ebay to solve this issue)

What we have tried:
1: Loading older operating systems and Linux to see if the issue was Windows related. (I've put Windows 7 and XP into virtual machines and connected the readers, same results)
2: Buying Flash PCMCIA cards "new" off of Ebay.
3: Buying "New" SRAM cards off of Ebay.
4: Dredging up an old laptop with a built in PCMCIA reader.
5: Converting a CF to PCMCIA card adapter. Works on Windows, but our aging equipment won't read the adapter, so that's no good for our purposes.
6: Bought the SRAM cards with replaceable battery. Same issue.

I'm open to any suggestions.

(And I do apologize for not giving specifics on our employer and the equipment we use)

 

[kanewolf]

Hello, everyone!

So, to make a long story short, my employer uses PCMCIA SRAM cards to update certain equipment we have on a bi-annual basis. (Dinosaurs, I know, but they've been working for years and it would be almost prohibitive to upgrade to new equipment) We use an external OmniDrive USB reader to update these cards with the appropriate data. One year ago, we had 12 of these cards functioning. Six months ago, we started having issues accessing these drives. The SRAM cards would either display as unformatted or not appear at all. (At this point, I should address that the SRAM cards we have have a non-removeable internal battery. We do have a charger, but it's functionality has been called into question) And when attempting to format, Windows will display a capacity much higher than what should even be on the card (Saying the capacity is 64mb when in reality only hold 2mb) We are down to no operational cards.

What equipment we have on hand:
2x OmniDrive PCMCIA-USB readers (One of which we know is bad)
1x Ancient Laptop with a PCMCIA reader built in
15-20x PCMCIA Card, maybe 2-4 of those are Flash storage, the rest are SRAM (We've been experimenting with different cards from ebay to solve this issue)

What we have tried:
1: Loading older operating systems and Linux to see if the issue was Windows related. (I've put Windows 7 and XP into virtual machines and connected the readers, same results)
2: Buying Flash PCMCIA cards "new" off of Ebay.
3: Buying "New" SRAM cards off of Ebay.
4: Dredging up an old laptop with a built in PCMCIA reader.
5: Converting a CF to PCMCIA card adapter. Works on Windows, but our aging equipment won't read the adapter, so that's no good for our purposes.
6: Bought the SRAM cards with replaceable battery. Same issue.

I'm open to any suggestions.

(And I do apologize for not giving specifics on our employer and the equipment we use)

Is the original equipment manufacturer still in business (I would guess yes, since you get updates)? Do they have a solution? Maybe an updated programmer with CF support?

 

[PianoMan343]

Is the original equipment manufacturer still in business (I would guess yes, since you get updates)? Do they have a solution? Maybe an updated programmer with CF support?

Ah, the part I left out! The original manufacturer is no longer in business, and the folks that bought them (who is also another vendor of ours) is no longer supporting the original product.

 

[kanewolf]

Ah, the part I left out! The original manufacturer is no longer in business, and the folks that bought them (who is also another vendor of ours) is no longer supporting the original product.

Without the original manufacturer giving any assistance, you are at a SEVERE disadvantage. Do you have any contact info for anybody that had manufacturer service training? A previous service person for example?
Have you googled the make and model of the equipment to see if there is anybody else with a similar problem?
Since you have chosen to not provide much specific info on the equipment, I can't provide anything very specific.

 

[TerryLaze]

Hello, everyone!

So, to make a long story short, my employer uses PCMCIA SRAM cards to update certain equipment we have on a bi-annual basis.

Do these systems have pci slots? Usb ports on the back?
Maybe you could change to something else, pci usb cards do exist or if it has usb ports on the back you could use those.
There are even isa to usb cards.
The question I guess is why does it have to be pcmcia cards?
You can use an sd to ide card, everything supports ide, there are even some that are made to be accessible from the outside.
Heck you can use a goteck drive, that connects to the floppy port and allows floppy images to be read from usb. You would have to make floppy images but that's not too difficult.

 

[kanewolf]

Do these systems have pci slots? Usb ports on the back?
Maybe you could change to something else, pci usb cards do exist or if it has usb ports on the back you could use those.
There are even isa to usb cards.
The question I guess is why does it have to be pcmcia cards?
You can use an sd to ide card, everything supports ide, there are even some that are made to be accessible from the outside.
Heck you can use a goteck drive, that connects to the floppy port and allows floppy images to be read from usb. You would have to make floppy images but that's not too difficult.

The problem will be embedded software support for other devices. Since a CF to PCMCIA adapter card didn't work, I am thinking it would have to be a more "old school" interface. Serial port for example.

 

[PianoMan343]

I think I can give a bit more detail in this case.

We work with external bus destination signs. (Buses as in vehicle buses)
We update the PCMCIA SRAM cards on our Windows 10/11 workstations with modern software and transport the SRAM cards to the sign interface on the buses. (Our newer sign models are updated with USB sticks, same concept, much older tech) We have a mixed fleet of brand new and old technologies, our oldest buses being updated via SRAM cards as opposed to USB sticks.

We did contact the vendor that bought the original vendor. They gave us two options.
1: Scrounge Ebay and the like for the interfaces that upgrade the user interface from PCMCIA to USB (Which is itself out of date but useable.) Part of the problem is we would need about two dozen replacements for already obsolete upgrade.
2: Buy new for an aging fleet, which would be tens of thousands of dollars on old buses.
My goal is trying everything I can think of to make the SRAM cards work, or figure out if there is some software reason why the cards aren't reading anymore. (As opposed to a hardware failure on the part of the SRAM cards, which we would be pure out of luck.)

 

[kanewolf]

I think I can give a bit more detail in this case.

We work with external bus destination signs. (Buses as in vehicle buses)
We update the PCMCIA SRAM cards on our Windows 10/11 workstations with modern software and transport the SRAM cards to the sign interface on the buses. (Our newer sign models are updated with USB sticks, same concept, much older tech) We have a mixed fleet of brand new and old technologies, our oldest buses being updated via SRAM cards as opposed to USB sticks.

We did contact the vendor that bought the original vendor. They gave us two options.
1: Scrounge Ebay and the like for the interfaces that upgrade the user interface from PCMCIA to USB (Which is itself out of date but useable.) Part of the problem is we would need about two dozen replacements for already obsolete upgrade.
2: Buy new for an aging fleet, which would be tens of thousands of dollars on old buses.
My goal is trying everything I can think of to make the SRAM cards work, or figure out if there is some software reason why the cards aren't reading anymore. (As opposed to a hardware failure, which we would be pure out of luck.)

I do see adapter cards that provide USB interfaces from PCMCIA -- for example -- https://www.amazon.com/Dewedrt-PCMCIA-CardBus-Adapter-Computer/dp/B0CQCBMGRN/ . Have you tried one of them?
Do you have a scrapped sign that you can play with in the shop, rather than having to go to active busses ?

 

[PianoMan343]

I do see adapter cards that provide USB interfaces from PCMCIA -- for example -- https://www.amazon.com/Dewedrt-PCMCIA-CardBus-Adapter-Computer/dp/B0CQCBMGRN/ . Have you tried one of them?
Do you have a scrapped sign that you can play with in the shop, rather than having to go to active busses ?

That may end up being the next logical step to take. I'll keep you posted on results!

 

[fzabkar]

What equipment we have on hand:
2x OmniDrive PCMCIA-USB readers (One of which we know is bad)
1x Ancient Laptop with a PCMCIA reader built in
15-20x PCMCIA Card, maybe 2-4 of those are Flash storage, the rest are SRAM (We've been experimenting with different cards from ebay to solve this issue)

Could we see photos of the electronic innards of these cards and readers?

Can you tell us the model of the laptop?

I'm wondering whether all your readers are faulty???

When you say that the capacity is detected as 64MB, can you tell us how the device is identified, ie does Windows report a model number? If the model number has a spelling error, then this would point to a stuck bit on the interface.

Just in case someone else is curious, I found a product spec for these SRAM cards:

https://www.amtron.com/sram/sram_datasheet_pretec_2017Aug.pdf

 

[PianoMan343]

Could we see photos of the electronic innards of these cards and readers?

Can you tell us the model of the laptop?

I'm wondering whether all your readers are faulty???

When you say that the capacity is detected as 64MB, can you tell us how the device is identified, ie does Windows report a model number? If the model number has a spelling error, then this would point to a stuck bit on the interface.

Just in case someone else is curious, I found a product spec for these SRAM cards:

https://www.amtron.com/sram/sram_datasheet_pretec_2017Aug.pdf

Ah, I'll have to see if my co-worker and I have any leftover photos, we did take one apart. (With this model, it is 100% apparent that they are *definitely not* supposed to be taken apart. We were desperate, and anything can be accomplished if you yell "For science!!!" loud enough)

The funny thing is, I've been using the CF to PCMCIA converter as the control in this experiment. It reads consistently and correctly every time, which is why I find it weird that *all* our SRAM (flash and non) do not work. One of our Omnidrive readers definitely doesn't work, but the ancient laptop and the good Omnidrive read the converter every time.

Those Pretecs do make up the majority of our SRAMs. The primary symptom is, when trying to format, they read as 64mb almost every time, regardless of which card or reader. (Except for the converter)

Edit: To answer your question more directly, the old laptop is a Panasonic Toughbook Model CF-31

 

[fzabkar]

I'm wondering whether there is a fault like this one:

Bad model number due to stuck bit in IDE interface:
https://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?p=262#p262

I couldn't find circuit diagrams for your laptop.

Your Pretec cards have "common memory" for user data in SRAM. The manufacturer's data is stored in "attribute memory" (parallel EEPROM). Both are accessed via the same data bus. How does the card appear in BIOS or Device Manager? For example, if the card identifies itself as "Pretac" instead of "Pretec", then this would point to a fault in data bit #2. This would also impact the reported capacity.

That said, your CF-to-PCMCIA adaptor would be a passive type, without electronics, so a stuck bit should still affect this combination. :-?

What are the Pin-outs from PCMCIA PC Card to CompactFlash when using a CF Adapter?
https://www.synchrotech.com/support/faq-compact_flash_memory_cards.html#Q011

 

[PianoMan343]

For example, if the card identifies itself as "Pretac" instead of "Pretec", then this would point to a fault in data bit #2. This would also impact the reported capacity.

Device manager sees the Omnidrive reader, but not the card itself, at least to what I've observed. (I'll dig over it one more time just for the sake of due diligence, but that may not be until Friday of this week)

Looking over the pin-out diagram which you've provided (and this is, admittedly, veering out of my realm of knowledge) I can see why our vendor suggested that a converter probably wouldn't work in this circumstance, especially if the converter changing what pins do what and where from CF to PCMCIA. (Which, again, not to undermine your effort, which has been herculean and much appreciated)

We've ordered the USB-To-PCMCIA adapter which Kanewolf suggested above, and that should be shipped in the next couple of weeks. I'll keep everyone posted on the progress.

 

[kanewolf]

Device manager sees the Omnidrive reader, but not the card itself, at least to what I've observed. (I'll dig over it one more time just for the sake of due diligence, but that may not be until Friday of this week)

Looking over the pin-out diagram which you've provided (and this is, admittedly, veering out of my realm of knowledge) I can see why our vendor suggested that a converter probably wouldn't work in this circumstance, especially if the converter changing what pins do what and where from CF to PCMCIA. (Which, again, not to undermine your effort, which has been herculean and much appreciated)

We've ordered the USB-To-PCMCIA adapter which Kanewolf suggested above, and that should be shipped in the next couple of weeks. I'll keep everyone posted on the progress.

I will be interested to hear if the USB port option works.

 

[COLGeek]

I have been following this thread as a lurker. I "fondly" recall the trials and tribulations of getting PCMCIA/CardBUS/PCCard devices to work well (or even at all).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC_Card

US DoD used these interfaces for Fortezza cards. There were multiple PC desktop readers that relied upon brand specific proprietary PCI cards with horrid ribbon cables to connect the guts together. Cables often looked common, they weren't, leading to more than a few meltdowns.