New software expands Clié options

A Texas startup released software Tuesday that allows owners of Sony CliéPDAs (personal digital assistants) with Compact Flash (CF) card slots to use the slot for CF memory cards.

Without the software the CF slot on Sony’s PEG-NX60, PEG-NX70V and PEG-NZ90 CliéPDAs can only be used for communication cards, such as wireless LAN or cellular modem cards. Users are required to use Memory Stick if they want to use removable media because the PDAs do not ship with a memory card driver for the CF slot.

That’s not only an annoyance for users with existing CF memory cards but it also means that users purchasing new cards are forced to buy the more expensive Memory Stick media. SanDisk 256Mbyte CF cards can be purchased for around $50 while a similar capacity Memory Stick from Sony costs double that price.

Eruware’s new software is a driver that enables CF memory cards to be used in the CliéPDAs.

“It started when I first bought a Clié and I was reading [on Clié enthusiast sites] about plans for a driver but nothing happened,” said AmirYasin, who is one of the people behind Eruware. “I thought it would be a good thing to do, to help out the Clié community, help out ourselves and make a little money.”

The result has been an enthusiastic response from many Clié users, if the threads on Web sites like Clié Source are anything to go by. Yasin said he quickly recruited 100 beta testers and attracted an additional 300 offers of help when he posted a message saying no more testers were required.

The first version of the driver, which can be purchased for $27 at www.eruware.com, works with CF memory cards but not Microdrives. “There are some issues with Microdrives,” Yasin said. “They work in read-only mode. We think they draw too much power for writing and the data gets corrupted but we intend to support them.”

He said the company has not been contacted by Sony regarding the driver.

“Surprisingly not. Initially we were relatively concerned about that and looked into legal counsel but we believe we are pretty judgement proof. They can sue us but what are they going to get out of it and the backlash from the Clié community would be pretty severe.”

He says some recent changes that Sony made to some preinstalled software did prove problematic.

“In their latest version of Clié Viewer they attempted to thwart the use of the CF driver,” he said. “Originally it would see both [the CF and Memory Stick] slots and work perfectly but with the update it only sees the Memory Stick.”

Eruware’s response was the addition of a system that allows the CF card to masquerade as a Memory Stick and that change allowed Clié Viewer to work with CF cards again, he said.

“The CF slot is currently designed for wireless cards,” said Mina Naito, a spokeswoman for Sony in Tokyo. She declined to say whether Sony is planning to expand use of the CF slot and added, “Although Sony is always looking to include the best features in Clié, including the possibility of using other media, the Memory Stick will remain as the main media for Clié for a while because of its compatibility and usefulness.”

With the launch of Eruware’s driver, providing it works as advertised, the decision over which card will serve as the main memory card for CliéPDAs could now be in the hands of the consumer rather than Sony.