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USB Film Card Readers and OS/2

By Eric Landrieu ©April 2001

If you already own a digital camera which does not work with OS/2, or you may prefer the convenience of not having to connect your camera and use it, there are still options. The OS/2 Mass Storage Device Driver should work with any device which adheres closely to certain USB Mass Storage device specifications (I am not sure exactly which subclasses are supported by IBM). So, all we need to do is find CompactFlash or SmartMedia USB readers that comply to one of the standards.

Well, there's good news and bad news. The good news first: There have been ones made that do work with the driver by IBM. The bad news is they are very tough to find. Most of them that you can find today will not work. My guess is that manufacturers see them as more expensive to produce because of the intelligence that needs to be built in to the device. Along the lines of WinModems, they may feel that dumber equipment and a custom device driver saves them money in the long run. And this looks to be the direction they've been taking.

So how do you know whether a particular card reader will work? What I've found so far (although my research is very limited in this) is that the IBM driver is similar, although maybe not as fully functioning, as the one that ships with Windows 2000 and that is now integrated with the Macintosh operating system. This may not sound like it is much help, but it actually is.

What you need to determine is whether the reader has a custom driver for Windows 2000, or whether it says that the driver is included in the operating system. If it has the custom driver, I doubt it will work. If it says to use the one included with Windows 2000, you may be in luck. One tip that I've found is that the reader won't work if OS/2 is booted with the thing powered and connected, until I unplug it and re-plug it in. It then works fine. This is a fairy trivial thing for me. For some reason, the OS/2 driver just doesn't recognize it properly when first booting up.

In searching, I have found a couple of readers that may work with OS/2. Unfortunately, none is easy to get. I got lucky and found one on EBay that works (in fact, it works about twice as fast as my camera to the OS/2 system, and I have no problem writing files out to it). Here's a couple of readers that I've found that may work:

• The Simple Technology PhotoReader USB: Certain versions of this one work (this is the one I found and bought on EBay). Unfortunately, I don't think that they make the version that works with OS/2 any more. To find out whether one will work with OS/2, check their driver page: http://www.simpletech.com/support/index.html#pr_cf_usb
  
• From looking at the SanDisk website, it looks like the CompactFlash SDDR-05a reader (which, again, I don't think is being produced any more) should work with OS/2. All of the others allude to requiring a customized driver.
  
• Hagiwara FlashGate: Checking out http://www.hscus.com, the FlashGate CF (CompactFlash) and FlashGate (SmartMedia) brag about not needing a driver for 2000. This looks like a good candidate, as it does seem to be among their current product listings. Unfortunately, finding one is a minor miracle.
  
• Fujifilm SM-R1 & SM-R2: These may hold the best promise. Although not easy to find, there are sites that list them for sale. The Fuji Worldwide site says that they will work with Windows 2000 with the OS's built-in driver (see http://home.fujifilm.com/products/digital/me/index.html). The downside? It's relatively expensive. The places I've found charge $90-100 for it (although one may have it for $64, but I can't verify on the site that it is the correct model). Here are links to the product page at sites listing it for sale:
  

  http://stores.yahoo.com/gigabuyz/smr2.html
  

  http://www.audio-etcetera.com/audio-etc/photo-digital-cameras-smart-media-ca rds.html
  

  http://www.precision-camera.com/digital/fuji/Accessories/124103.htm
  

  http://stores.yahoo.com/gigabuyz/smr1.html
  

  http://216.22.147.66/hardware/cgi-bin/node.xgi?url=/hardware/db/879355.html& session=c1670800471969415126 (this is the one where I can't verify that it's the actual product, but the picture is the same, and the description doesn't really fit that of any other Fujifilm product)
  

Article references: IBM's USB Basic Device Support Package (software choice subscription required): http://service.software.ibm.com/os2dd/swc/usbbasic.exe IBM's USB Mass Storage Device Driver (software choice subscription required): http://service.software.ibm.com/os2dd/swc/usbstor.exe) Other USB and OS/2 related articles: Using the Toshiba PDR-M4 Digital Camera with OS/2 via USB, by Eric Landrieu: http://www.os2voice.org/VNL/past_issues/VNL0401H/vnewsf4.htm USB AND OS/2, by John Twelker:http://www.os2voice.org/VNL/past_issues/VNL1199H/vnewsf5.htm