PanelView 550 Compact Flash

I have a PanelView 550 2711-K5A2
Series E
Rev A
Frn V02.01
Boot V02.00

I am trying to retrieve the program from it.

I have a few different flavors of compact flash card and a Viking CFA4514 adapter.

Cards:
SanDisk 8MB (SDCFB)
SanDisk 16MB (SDCFB-16)
SimpleTech 32MB (102301I005)
SanDisk Ultra 4GB (yes i know, but if all else fails you gotta try)

The PV claims that all of my cards are not formatted.
It errors when I try to have it format them how it wants them.
I have used DOS to deliberately format one of them FAT16.

Is this just an incompatiblity with the Viking adapter?

It's the PanelView firmware.

Prior to firmware revision 3.0, the PanelView Standard terminals supported only Linear Flash cards, which had the part numbers 2711-NM1x and were a technology they shared with the PanelView Classic and PanelView Enhanced terminals.

V3.0 introduced support for ATA flash cards, 2711-NM2x.

When CompactFlash came on the market later, it adopted the ATA Flash specification and those inexpensive adapters made most CompactFlash cards that could be formatted with FAT16 work with PanelView Standard terminals.

The bad news is that virtually no computers supported Linear Flash; it was obsolete by the time PCMCIA slots became very commonplace. The old DataBook external drives were one way to read and write them, and I remember having a Toshiba Satellite that would read them.... in 1997.

The most straightforward way to upload from this terminal would be to use a 1747-PIC or 1747-UIC and connect to DH485.

A very long way around would be to get an old A-B memory card (I happen to have one), load the application program onto it then load that into an identical PanelView model with v3 firmware (I happen to have those too), then copy the application program onto a CompactFlash card on the new terminal. A that point you're paying royalties to Rube Goldberg's estate, but it would probably work.

Ken, thanks for the info and the education. I have a 1747-UIC on the way. I was due for one anyhow as I want to reduce my dependency on the PCMK. That will be reserved for the rare occasions I have to service something with DH+ now.

Once I get the application out of this thing I will probably upgrade it. I got a firmware error 24 on it that appears to be intermittent so I am sure it is on its last leg.

Oops, there goes my stock reply "memory card fixes everything"... for the panelview.

I could have sworn I used a linear card at work just a few months ago in a Dell Latitude probably 2005-ish era? I had to load up a used PV550 for a sister plant and it didn't even support security...it was FRN 2. something...maybe my memory is failing me and its a later version ATA card with a weird driver install technote...I was writing them a whole new SLC program, so there was lots of testing and downloading and I wanted to leave it hooked up to the SLC and save time so I spent a lot of time diggin up technotes to get my laptop loaded with the right driver to properly ID the old a/b branded card.

Time permitting, I will examine that memory card tomorrow if I didn't ship it off with the PV.

I do recall long ago having to follow specific instructions to get the right driver installed to be able to read this particular card that was the only one we had which worked in that hardware. I don't recall the details about how it worked now, but there were two recommended methods I think, and they involved lying to windows about the device type in one dialog box and then finding one of two specifically named drivers in another.

Ken can probably straighten me out, but I thought it was rather common to be able to read them with a laptop PCMCIA slot...

Paul