I just purchased a Toshiba PDR-M1. The owner's manual cautions that both the computer and camera should be off before connecting them in preparation for image downloading. Since I will usually leave the serial cable attached to an otherwise unused serial port on the back of the PC, for convenience (with the computer running) I would like to plug the free end of the cable to the (switched off) camera, then turn on the camera, launch Image Expert, do the download, turn off the camera, and disconnect, all with the computer still running. Would this be likely to cause a problem?

Thanks in advance. This is a really great forum.

Ned Nedbalek Wonder View Press

-- Leon "Ned" Nedbalek (ned@wvpress.com), December 23, 1998

Answers

Warning: This is not a Politically Correct Reply, proceed at the risk of irreversably affecting your consciousness... (Hey it's late, give a guy a break.)

I've owned a Toshiba PDR-M1 for about a month now thanks to Dave's review and a great price($350) for a nice hi-res. cam. I saw the warning too, but kind of dismissed it after the first finger-crossed- try with the PC turned on(I had probably already disconnected it once without thinking after shutting off the camera.) My cable has been hooked to the serial port since I first got it working. My PC is probably powered down no more than 72 hours in a given year, and that's only from upgrades, lightning storms, power outages and the like.

Do yourself a favor and get an external smartmedia reader or a pcmcia adaptor. They transfer the images off the smartmedia much faster than the serial port. For instance, my serial transfer runs at about 338KB/min. (More like 57,600 instead of the selected 115,200 baud?) I can copy 7.5MB off my Lexar Media Reader in about 16 seconds under Win98 through my parallel port. It sure beats waiting nearly 25 minutes to do the same through the serial port, at $65 won't really break the bank, and you'll enjoy your camera a whole lot more. Generally speaking, it's always a good idea to power down both sides of any connection before plugging in cables or making connections, but the serial port seems well protected. Even if the act of plugging in the cable happened to momentarily short the connections in the camera jack, it shouldn't harm anything since the cable is only carrying a set of data lines and ground, not a power source and the camera is shut off.

On the other hand, I'm sure somebody from Toshiba will tell you doing so will void your warrantee...

Sorry Kevin, I just couldn't resist. :-)

-- Gerald Payne (gmp@francorp.francomm.com), December 24, 1998.