MicroTech DPAI

The MicroTech International DPAI (Digital Photo Album Internal) is an internal, two-slot SCSI card reader and it is very fast! It comes in a PC or Macintosh package depending on your computer type. I have a Pentium II machine with a builtin Adaptec SCSI controller and no free IRQs left so using my old ISA-bus PCMCIA card reader was out of the question. The MicroTech card reader installed right out of the box without changing any jumpers at all. It is set for SCSI ID 5 for the first slot and SCSI ID 6 for the second slot.

Slot 1 is a full-height Type II/III slot capable of taking any kind of PC card including hard drives. Slot 2 is a half-height slot only. After Win95 boots you will now have two removeable hard drives listed under My Computer and these will be assigned the next two available drive letters. Unlike the ISA-bus PCMCIA controller there is no beeping when a CompactFlash card is inserted or removed. Windows 95/98 has builtin support for SCSI devices so no special driver files are required or needed.

The transfer speed from the CompactFlash card to the computer's hard drive is nearly the same speed as transfering files from one folder to another on the hard drive - it is very fast!

Steve's Digi-Rating

I give the MicroTech DPAI reader a rating of 5 digicams, it operated perfectly, installation was easy and it is a very fast SCSI device. The only negative is that as with all SCSI devices it is a bit pricey.