I am about to buy my first digital camera, and am confused about my downloading options. My computer does not have a USB, and I don't think I can add one. Are parallel readers available (I'll be using SmartMedia, probably 32 MB card), and if so how do they compare to the floppy-drive converters? Are there any other options open to me (besides buying a new computer w/USB :-) ?

Thanks in advance! Jeff

-- Jeff Mutter (jwmutter@aol.com), March 11, 2000

Answers

Sorry, I wasn't very clear with my question:

1. How do the different readers (floppy vs parallel) compare in downlaod speed? 2. I also have a scanner and printer using my parallel port. Will a parallel reader cause me problems with these?

Thanks again!

-- Jeff Mutter (jwmutter@aol.com), March 11, 2000.

I'm "assuming" [I hate that option! Details Folks, DETAILS! :-)] you have a PC? Let's see, you have several options:

In order of speed, slowest to fastest: Note: b=bit, B= Byte

Serial Port - 57.6Kb/sec ~ 5.7KB/sec ~20+Mins/ 8MB data (measured) Serial Port - 115.2Kb/sec ~11.5KB/sec ~10+Mins/ 8MB data (measured) Flashpath - floppy disk transfer rate? Parallel Port - ~ 550KB/sec ~15 secs/ 8MB data (measured) ECP/EPP Parallel Port ~3000KB/sec Theoretical! (Dreaming?) USB Port - 12Mb/sec ~1500KB/sec THEORETICAL! (DREAMING?) PCMCIA Card reader - about ATA Hard drive transfer rate?

Background: Serial speed was measured downloading an 8MB smartmedia card through my camera(at the lower speed presented). Parallel Port speed was measured with my Lexar Media Reader downloading an 8MB smartmedia card. ECP/EPP & USB theoretical port speeds were reported in a faq found on www.usb.org . Bear in mind, theoretical speeds for both ECP/EPP and USB seem to be vastly overrated, although higher speed for a byte wide transfer device like ECP/EPP seems more likely. I also recall seeing a document that seemed to state that USB was actually limited to a real world throughput of about 950KB/sec.

As far as adding USB goes, you need Win 95B or C or Win98. You can purchase a card which installs in your PC to provide USB ports, although some motherboards already have connectors and only need the proper cabling to bring the port out to the back of the case.

I'm doubtful that you'll be able to run multiple pass-through devices on a parallel port as it's likely you'll experience driver/hardware conflicts. You could, of course, simply install a switchbox and manually select the proper devices as you need them. You might also have to set up seperate hardware configurations in Windows to keep the drivers from conflicting?

Good Luck!

-- Gerald M. Payne (gmp@francomm.com), March 11, 2000.

Thanks very much for your help! Sounds like it might be possible to add USB to my PC after all. Your transfer data is very interesting, but I'm not sure what you mean by "Flashpath - floppy transfer rate?" Is the Flashpath download speed variable depending upon the speed of my floppy drive? If so, is there any way to determine that speed, or is there a typical or standard rate? I found specs for a Mitsubishi 3.5" 1.44 MB drive (mine's a Sony) that listed a transfer rate of 500 Kb/sec. Do they vary much between manufacturers? Sorry about all the questions!

Jeff

-- Jeff Mutter (jwmutter@aol.com), March 11, 2000.

What I meant about the flashpath(?) is that I think it transfers data off the smartmedia at about the same rate as a floppy can be read. It might be faster since I don't think the head has to move. It was a guess at best.

I think 500KB/sec is a BIT "optimistic" and is probably a burst rate, not an actual prolonged transfer speed. Anybody out there with a Flashpath have any timing on this? I'm basing this on what seemed like endless amounts of time to copy floppies back when copying a floppy was worth the trouble. Every file is so large these days I hardly use floppies for anything. If the data actually transferred at 500K per sec, it'd take less than 3 seconds to read a floppy. VERY DOUBTFUL!

It seems to me there must be a flashpath review or two somewhere kicking around.

-- Gerald M. Payne (gmp@francomm.com), March 12, 2000.

1. EPP/ECP parallel ports are a little over twice as fast as the current USB standard. Although all current motherboards have EPP/ECP parallel ports, they usually must be configured as such in Windows '95 or '98 by the user. Check Device Manager to see how yours is configured - if it is ECP it will identified as "ECP Printer Port (LPT1)". Most books on Windows describe how to the configure the port (it is not difficult).

2. I opted to buy a cheap parallel port card reader (from Buy.com, under $30). It draws it power from the keyboard (a Y-connector was supplied), and it has a printer pass-through (another supplied Y-connector). This Rube Goldberg setup worked as advertised. Not only does it work, but the keyboard and printer work as usual. In general, I would trust printer pass-throughs except for those printers for which you wish to use their bi-directional capability since the Y-connector is not bi-directional. For most people, however, this is not an issue.

-- Albert Klee (aklee@fuse.net), March 12, 2000.

The person way up above guessing that parallel port readers are a lot slower than USB readers is wrong, they're about the same speed in practice

-- benoit (foo@bar.com), March 14, 2000.

Benoit,

If you're referring to my post, please learn to read before opening mouth and inserting foot. The numbers I gave were qualified as being measured or theoretical and classified as such! Hopefully, you'll note the DOUBTFUL! after both the ECP/EPP & USB theoretical or claimed speeds. I listed in that order because they were the only numbers I had, as I don't have good(by good I mean by my own observation) USB numbers. My point was that the ~550KB/sec that I MEASURED on my parallel ports was about 18% of the claimed speed for ECP/EPP. In actual practice, according to at least one poster a while back, USB edged out parallel transfer by about 20%, not much of an advantage, but there.

Frankly, who cares whether USB or parallel is faster since the edge is so minimal. If the messed up formatting contributed to anyone's lack of understanding, I apologize. But for some reason this forum has a very real formatting bug! Probably trying to remove excessive spaces or something. It's very possible ECP/EPP parallel ports could operate at much higher speeds on faster PC's or with different hardware/ software combinations.

-- Gerald M. Payne (gmp@francomm.com), March 14, 2000.