In 1995, Toshiba launched SmartMedia in the hopes of replacing floppy discs. Called a Solid State Floppy Disc Card or SSFDC, it was the smallest flash memory card of its day, only three-quarters of a millimeter thick, and was made from one plastic-covered EEPROM chip. Toshiba created a companion device to SmartMedia called the FlashPath. The FlashPath was an adapter that allowed a SmartMedia card to be used in any floppy drive. Then, rather than being able to store just the 1.44 Megs that a floppy disk allowed, you could use your SmartCard and FlashPath adapter in the floppy drive and store up to 128 Megs instead.
SmartMedia did find an audience, even though it didn’t replace floppy disks as was intended. Digital cameras of the day had little built-in storage, and SmartMedia cards became the standard storage device used in digital cameras in 2001. Olympus and Fuji endorsed SmartMedia for their camera buyers as the best digital photo storage card. Though it was rarely used in media players or other digital devices, it ended up in about half of all digital cameras by 2001.
It soon began being replaced by newer types of cards with more storage capacity, though. SmartMedia cards are only capable of holding 128 Megs of data. And unfortunately, most gadgets would only allow use of the 32Meg variety out of the box, with firmware upgrades required to use those cards with higher storage. SmartMedia influenced a new generation of flash cards, but was going out of vogue by 2004 or 2005 as it was replaced by cards with more storage. Olympus and Fuji stopped pushing its use, as they jointly created their own flash memory cards.
SmartMedia’s chief replacement was SD Secure Digital cards that are commonly used now in almost all digital devices, especially cameras. The storage capacity of the originals was more than twice SmartMedia’s original 128 Meg cap, and the cards were capable of storing and offering up data twice as fast as SmartMedia cards.
Just as it became standard among digital camera purchasers to go and buy a SmartMedia card along with the camera, because the salespeople would point out that they would quickly appreciate that extra storage even if the device could only handle the 32 Meg card, SD cards are now standard purchases. A digital camera, video game system or other storage device without an SD slot is almost unheard of today. Toshiba and Samsung still make SmartMedia cards, but as the older devices they were designed for fade away, so will the production of these first flash cards, to make way for newer, better products from their Lexar and Sandisk lines.
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