Why hasn't anyone thought of doing this?

[Mindfield]

Out of curiosity, what kind of interface would be needed for Sony Memory Sticks? They're quite compact by themselves, and even the PC attachment is quite small. Expensive, mind you, but just a curiosity. Sony use the same technology (MemoryGate) in their Playstation/PSOne and PS2 as their other devices that take sticks, so I'm thinking that it needn't be all that complicated -- would they bother using a full ATA/IDE interface for such a thing? Especially for a PSOne? I'm thinking it might be possible either to use Memory Sticks, or PSONe/PS2 memory cards for such a project. PSOne cards are relatively cheap, though very small (128k?) and PS2 8 meg cards are generally $39.99 (CDN) for Mad Catz or $47.99 (CDN) for Sony. Then there's InterAct's 16 meg card for $49.99 (CDN).

 

Alternatively, what about Dreamcast's VMU? It's cheap ($19.99 CDN) and has its own CPU, LCD screen and buttons that could be used to develop the menu system. It's also larger than a PSOne memory card (both physically and in terms of the amount of memory) so it might be an idea as well.