While Palm OS handhelds(still) can’t access USB drives, TI graphing calculators can now do it:
http://wikiti.denglend.net/index.php?title=83Plus:Software:msd8x
http://www.ticalc.org/archives/news/articles/13/139/139572.html
I have a feeling that a Newton-like fan group has built around TI’s high performance calculators. I wonder if TI supports those fan groups, or if they find out all the data on their own…
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So why ISN’T there a third-part app to let a Palm use USB drives?
I’m not a programmer, but if Palms can read/write SD cards, RAM drives and (in the case of the LifeDrive) hard disks, shouldn’t doing the same for a USB drive be trivial?
Can someone educate me?
I think it’s not only a software problem. I think, to enable this, there has to be a connection between the USB host controller (of the processor) and the universal connector.
On the other side, it seems to be possible, at least on some devices, as the Zire 71 DOES support USB hosting mode – on Linux. So if it was possible I think it would be easier to do this under Linux because it has already support for USB host.
So it’s necessary to emulate the correct handshaking on the Palm side. That’s still not beyond some of the clever programmers out there.
Another thought: Does the Palm supply enough voltage at the multiconnector to read/write a USB stick?
IMHO not – a device could even damage the Palm. I don’t know how this works on PocketPCs, but I think you’d need a hub with external power supply.
The multiconnector could almost certainly handle the voltage… considering the multiconnector is a modified USB interface. It might not be able to handle USB 2.0 (i really have no clue about that one), but that isnt too important… most flash drives support the slower speed mode.
Basically, we just need to get someone to write up the drivers and the app (As a programmer myself, I know this is much easier said than done).
If it could not be done with the palm using software alone, it could be done with an external bridge/adapter. However, the chipset in the Treo does support USB host mode and I know that Zire devices support USB host if you install a linux rom on them.
In either case…this is really somethign we need…like yesterday