Need a driver: Intel PCMCIA Flash card

Eric J Korpela wrote: I thought someone would chime in on this before now with the answer, or I would have brought it up sooner. There are basically two types of flash memory on PCMCIA cards. The first type, which was basically a linear addressable type, more like ram, is what I think the OP has. That one requires drivers in the operating system that manages the flash file system (FFS). Because flash memory is generally limited on the number of write cycles it can have before it starts to fail, the FFS implements a scheme that rotates through the flash memory array so that least recently used cells are used next. This maximizes the life of the entire array by not continuously writing to the same cells, like the ones that contain directory information. As far as I know there is no FFS built into Windows. Linear flash memory was not used that often for several reasons. Only one was the complexity of the FFS overhead. They were very expensive in the days of linear flash PCMCIA cards. Flash memory in PCMCIA cards became practical, affordable, and easy to use all at the same time. That was when they were packaged in "ATA Flash". The smarts to use LRU (Least Recently Used) cells was packaged right in the card. And the interface on those cards were the same as the Type III rotating memory cards. The cards with hard drives in them used that interface. So to the system that you plugged them into ATA Flash cards just appeared as small hard drives. The guts of the card did all the extra handling to make the actual flash cells work. The last time I fiddled with linear flash on PCMCIA it was in the DOS days and I probably used CardSoft or similar package for DOS. When ATA Flash came out in PCMCIA there was almost no reason to use linear flash anymore, so I don't know what would be needed today to make it work. BTW, the one linear flash card I have in my desk is also an Intel. It is marked "Value Series 100" and is labeled for 5volt operation. Hope this clears it up a bit. Dave Mabry