Re: [PATCH] [MEMSTICK] Initial commit for Sony MemoryStick support

Carlos Corbacho
2007-12-31T00:56:39Z

On Monday 31 December 2007 00:31:12 Jan Engelhardt wrote:
> On Dec 31 2007 00:01, Carlos Corbacho wrote:
> >On Monday 24 December 2007 03:06:37 oakad@exemail.com.au wrote:
> >> From: Alex Dubov <oakad@yahoo.com>
> >>
> >> Sony MemoryStick cards are used in many products manufactured by Sony.
> >> They are available both as storage and as IO expansion cards. Currently,
> >> only MemoryStick Pro storage cards are supported via TI FlashMedia
> >> MemoryStick interface.
>
> Actually... my MS slot on PCG-U3 is recognized through usb_storage.

Then consider yourself very lucky - some laptop manufacturers play nice and
the card reader identifies itself, and works as, a USB mass storage device;
so it works out of the box with no extra drivers needed for either the card
reader, or the flash memory card.

The Texas Instruments chip/ card reader that Alex's work here is currently
aimed at does not - it has a completely proprietary, so called "FlashMedia"
chip/ interface that talks to MMC/ SD, MemoryStick (/ Pro), and SmartMedia/
xD cards, of which TI have refused to release any specs.

Yes, this chip doesn't even use sdhci for communicating with MMC/ SD cards -
tifm_sd (Alex's previous work on the MMC/ SD front for this TI chip) handles
that.

MemoryStick support is more complicated in this case than MMC/ SD, given that
on top of TI refusing to release specs for their own FlashMedia chips, Sony
will also not release any specs on MemoryStick cards; the same is also true
of xD with Olympus and Fuji.

-Carlos
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