[ARSCLIST] CF cards, FAT16 formatting, Windows XP and some older JVC Portable Rom Players

[Andy Kolovos <akolovos@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Folks,

I hope this isn't too off topic.  We've got a large number of JVC 
XA-GP3BK audio players.  These are the kind of thing you find for 
exhibit-based audio playback in museums--they've got a mono earphone, 
numerical keypad for selecting audio tracks, a play button, a volume 
knob and use CF cards for file storage.  Pretty simple and well suited 
to our needs.

We purchased them several hundred years ago to be able to include 
interview audio excerpts for our in house exhibits.  We also loan them 
out to other local museums that want to include audio material in their 
exhibits.

The problem I seem to be having relates to CF card formatting.  As I 
said, in digital technology terms these things are sort of old--they 
date back to the late 1990s.  Herein lies the root of the problem.

According to the developer's handbook for creating audio programs for 
use with these units the CF cards need to be "MSDOS formatted."  I 
assume this means FAT.  All fine and good, right?  Well, I learned (the 
hard way, actually) that FAT32 isn't exactly fully compatible with the 
players.  I've also learned that Windows XP doesn't allow for FAT16 
formatting.

Outside of trying to track down an old 98SE or 2K machine (which I might 
be able to do), is there any way--a third party app, a command line 
approach--that I can use to do a FAT16 format on these cards using my XP 
machine?  Anyone know if a Mac running OSX will do a FAT16 format?

Any help most appreciated.

Thanks!

andy
--
Andy Kolovos
Archivist/Folklorist
Vermont Folklife Center
88 Main Street
Middlebury, VT 05753
(802) 388-4964 [voice]
(802) 388-1844 [fax]
www.vermontfolklifecenter.org