Miniaturization is evident in memory card creation; over time, the physical card sizes have become smaller.Memory card in a digital SLR camera
Electronic data storage device
Amemory card is an electronic data storage device used for storing digital information, typically usingflash memory. These are commonly used in digitalportable electronic devices, such asdigital cameras as well as in many early games consoles such as theNeo Geo. They allow adding memory to such devices using a card in a socket instead of protrudingUSB flash drives.[1]
The development of memory cards was driven in the 1980s by the need for an alternative to floppy disk drives that had lower power consumption, had less weight and occupied less volume in laptops. Some were also marketed as a lower cost alternative toROM cartridges.[7] Several competing and incompatible memory card formats were developed by several vendors,[8] such as for example theBee Card, Astron SoftCards,[9] Sega Cards,NEC UltraLite memory cards,[10][11] and the Mitsubishi Melcard which came in variants using 60 and 50 connector pins. TheSega Card was developed as a cheaper alternative to game cartridges.[12] Some memory cards were used for memory expansion in laptops.[13][14][15]
JEIDA, theJapan Electronic Industry Development Association, began to work on a standard for memory cards in 1985, and developed theJEIDA memory card in 1986.[16]ThePersonal Computer Memory Card International Association (PCMCIA) was an industry association created in 1989 to promote a standard for memory cards in PCs, and worked closely with JEIDA, adopting their 68 pin connector design. The specification for PCMCIA type I cards, later renamedPC Cards, was first released in 1990, and unified the JEIDA memory card standard with the PC Card standard.[15][17] This format later included support for other devices besides memory cards.[17] PC Card was among the first commercial memory card formats to come out, but is mainly used in industrial applications and to connect I/O devices such asmodems.
Some early memory cards usedSRAM as a storage medium, which required a lithium battery to keep the contents in the SRAM. These cards were faster than their flash counterparts. Some of the first PCMCIA cards had capacities of 1 to 5 MB and cost US$100 per MB.[18] Other early cards such as the Bee Card contained non-modifiableROM,Write once read manyEPROM or rewriteableEEPROM memory.[19] In 1992,SanDisk introduced FlashDisk, a PCMCIA card and one of the first memory cards that did not require battery power to retain its contents, as it used flash memory.[20][18]
In 1994, memory card formats smaller than the PC Card arrived. The first one wasCompactFlash and laterSmartMedia andMiniature Card. The desire for smaller cards for cell-phones,PDAs, andcompact digital cameras drove a trend that left the previous generation of "compact" cards looking big. In 2000 the SD card was announced. SD was envisioned as a single memory card format for several kinds of electronic devices, that could also function as an expansion slot for adding new capabilities for a device.[21] In 2001, SmartMedia alone captured 50% of the digital camera market and CF had captured the professional digital camera market.
However, by 2005, SD and similar MMC cards had nearly taken over SmartMedia's spot, though not to the same level and with stiff competition coming from Memory Stick variants, as well as CompactFlash. In industrial and embedded fields, even the venerable PC card (PCMCIA) memory cards still manage to maintain aniche, while in mobile phones and PDAs, the memory card has become smaller.[citation needed]
Initially memory cards were expensive, costing US$3 per megabyte of capacity in 2001;[22] this led to the development of miniaturized rotating disk memory devices such as theMicrodrive,PocketZip andDataplay. The Microdrive had higher capacities than memory cards at the time. All three concepts became obsolete once flash memory prices became lower and their capacities became higher by 2006.[20]
New products of Sony (previously only using Memory Stick) and Olympus (previously only using XD-Card) have been offered with an additional SD-Card slot beginning in 2010.[23] Effectively theformat war has turned in SD-Card's favor.[24][25][26]
Many oldervideo game consoles used memory cards to holdsaved game data.Cartridge-based systems primarily used battery-backedvolatileRAM within each individual cartridge to hold saves for that game. Cartridges without this RAM may have used apassword system, or would not save progress at all. TheNeo Geo AES, released in 1990 bySNK, was the first video game console able to use a memory card. AES memory cards were also compatible withNeo Geo MVSarcade cabinets, allowing players to migrate saves between home andarcade systems and vice versa.[29][30] Memory cards became commonplace when home consoles moved to read-onlyoptical discs for storing the game program, beginning with systems such as theTurboGrafx-CD andSega-CD.
Home consoles commonly usehard disk drive storage for saved games and allow the use ofUSB flash drives or other card formats via amemory card reader to transport game saves and other game information. Though some consoles have implementedcloud storage saving, most portable gaming systems still rely on custom memory cartridges to store program data, due to their low power consumption, smaller physical size and reduced mechanical complexity.
^"Camera trends come into focus for 2010", NBC News, 13. January.2010"As much as the storage-format war cleared up a bit with Sony announcing that it would support SD and SDHC cards ..."
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