Extremely slow IO with a PCMCIA CompactFlash adapter

[Jack Byer <ojbyer@usa.net>]

I have an old digital camera that stores its pictures on a 340 MB IBM 
microdrive. I am trying to transfer to pictures from the camera to my 
computer but can not find the special non-standard USB cable. The 
camera did come with a CompactFlash to PCMCIA adapter, so tried 
connecting it to my laptop. I was able to install the correct modules 
and mount the drive, but accessing it is very slow (5.0 kBps read / 
3.8 kBps write). Is this expected behavior? Is there any setup I am 
missing that would make this faster?

Kernel version is 2.6.30.3

pccardctl ls:

Socket 0 Bridge:        [yenta_cardbus]         (bus ID: 0000:00:0a.0)
Socket 0 Device 0:      [pata_pcmcia]           (bus ID: 0.0)

pccardctl info:

PRODID_1="IBM"
PRODID_2="microdrive"
PRODID_3=""
PRODID_4=""
MANFID=00a4,0000
FUNCID=4

time output to write a 1 MB file to the drive:

real    4m29.476s
user    0m0.000s
sys     0m0.000s

time output to read a 1 MB file from the drive:

real    3m25.600s
user    0m0.000s
sys     0m0.000s