How to store data to memory cards or hard drives?

Bubbahotep

Long time amateur stamp user, first time poster, and wasnt able to find in a search:

Has anyone ever used the stamp to write/read to memory cards such as those used in cameras (like SD cards 512M, 128M etc)?

Has anyone interfaced with a computer hard drive that WASNT inside a computer? Just the drive itself powered via 12V and conncted directly to the stamp?

Im working on a project that requires massive amounts of data to be stored and eventually plotted. The stamp must stand alone with the recording device and I cant use a computer. Since camera memory cards store images I figure they'd be prefect for simple data that is stored without requiring power to "remember" the data

Bruce Bates

Bubbahotep -

There are only a few references and methods at the present time to do what you're hoping to do. This first is somewhat incomplete, but does indicate the high degree of difficulty in interfacing a non-bus oriented processor with a bus oriented I/O device (IDE hard drive):

Barry Michael's PIC --> IDE Project:
http://barrymichels.com/ide/

Perhaps more in line with your present needs, both Rogue Robotics (uMMC) and GHI Electronics (ALFAT) offer companion boards or chips to access CF and similar storage cards from microcontrollers:

Rogue: http://www.roguerobotics.com/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=6&MMN_position=5:2

GHI: http://www.ghielectronics.com/

Regards,

Bruce Bates