[Dtb-talk] The Physical Cartridges themselves?

[Flint Million]

Another interesting point is that, you can indeed connect a library
cart to your PC using the same USB extender cable that would work with
a blank cart. You'll even be able to view the files that comprise the
book, and you can even copy them off the cart for transfer to your own
cart or to, say, a Victor Reader Stream or similar unit. The only
inhibition present on library owned carts is the write protection.
Besides this they operate just like any other flash drive and the
files can indeed be accessed by a PC.

F


On Fri, Jul 29, 2011 at 12:27 PM, Flint Million <fmillion at gmail.com> wrote:
> The NLS shipping carts are "write protected" in software. This means
> the device rejects any write requests to the flash media. Blank
> cartridges which are purchased do not have this enabled and can be
> read and written to freely, just like a standard USB flash drive.
>
> It would stand to reason that the NLS library carts either accept
> proprietary USB mass storage commands that enable and disable the
> write protection, or they may have a physical switch inside the sealed
> unit. Either way, even if you were to somehow manage to rewrite the
> data on a library cart, as I understand it they are always erased and
> reloaded upon return from a patron anyway.
>
> Also note that the library carts generally are 1GB units while the
> blank carts I've been seeing are 2GB!
>
>
> F
>
>
> On Fri, Jul 29, 2011 at 12:19 PM, James McCarthy <jmccart at lbph.lib.md.us> wrote:
>> Paul,
>> Others may be better situated than am I to address this point, but it is my
>> understanding that there is software on NLS cartridges that does not permit
>> patrons to add or delete files from them. This is absent on the blank
>> cartridges allowing one to add or delete books as desired.
>> Jim McCarthy
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: dtb-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:dtb-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
>> Behalf Of Paul Migliorelli (+1 303-552-6970)
>> Sent: Friday, July 29, 2011 1:11 PM
>> To: Discussion of Digital Talking Books
>> Subject: [Dtb-talk] The Physical Cartridges themselves?
>>
>> Hi.  Just curious.  On blank cartridges, there is obviously the hole to
>> plug in the cable for the computer.  When you get cartridges in the mail,
>> are they physically write protected somehow?  What makes them so?  I
>> didn't think library ones have a cable hole.  Just curious how it works.
>>
>>
>> --
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