> SmartMedia cards are supposed to do the same thing, but there's more smarts
> in the physical adapter widget which makes them PCMCIA-sized and less in the
> card itself.  I have never tried to get a SmartMedia card to work either way
> as an IDE disk or controller (though they're supposed to) so I can't tell you
> that I know that it works.

Yes, I know that it should/could work, but I've always tried to pick
hardware that others can confirm works :-)  

> Both the media (because few companies make it) and the adapter (because it's
> got smarts in it, instead of just changing the physical form factor) for
> SmartMedia are more expensive than CompactFlash, so I've never bothered
> trying to use them.  In fact, *not* using SmartMedia is one thing I've
> shopped for as I try to decide on a digital camera. :-)

Yes, it looks very much like SmartMedia will eventually die a death,
and I'm sure Olympus will _eventually_ bring out a CF model...

In the mean time I'm not sure which if any of the CF cameras to
choose, or to just stick with the "camera" choice and put up with the
media problem.

Just to clarify, should I expect to be able to simply plug he CF card
into a pcmcia slot in my laptop and be able to access the pics?

And there is an adapter that will plug into my IDE port too... and
both approaches should work ok with NetBSD?

If the answer to both the above is yes, I might wander up to the local
camera shop (who only handles SmartMedia camers btw :-) and ask to try
the SM->pcmcia adapter...

Thanks again for the info.

--sjg