Back to Dick’s Gadget Warehouse for the amazing JumpSHOT!
October 15, 2011 2 Comments 
This gadget from Dick’s Gadget Warehouse goes back to 1999. It’s the JumpSHOT from Lexar and at the time it was referred to as the worlds smallest flash memory card reader. The JumpSHOT was a cable, a little more than 2’ long, with a housing that contained a CompactFlash slot on one end and a USB plug on the other. It was powered by the computer’s USB port, which helped keep it simple. The reason that it could be small was that the USB controller was actually located inside the Lexar JumpSHOT CF memory cards. That’s why it didn’t work with all CompactFlash Memory Cards. You needed software drivers along with the special USB cable. Because the USB functionality was in the CompactFlash card, the JumpSHOT USB cable was low-priced for its time. It sold for about $18 to $20 and included the necessary software drivers. The JumpSHOT CompactFlash digital filmcards featured 8X speed, which was up to three times faster than the generic digital film available at the time. Once the software was loaded the JumpSHOT showed up as an additional drive on your computer. LOOK HOW FAR WE’VE COME IN 11 YEARS. Here’s an Amazon Review from Dec 2000: “The Lexar 128MB USB-enabled compact flash card is really great for my 3 mega-pixel camera. Its capacity is relatively large, and it is faster by far than the earlier cards I had.” And if you hurry, you still might find this “bargain” on the web: (It was there on 10/15/11!) Lexar Media 48MB 8X USB Compactflash Digital Flash RAM Card with Jumpshot Cable by Lexar $220.06. I hope no one decides to order this!
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Reader Comments (2)
First ever warehouse gadget that I also owned. Think I had the Casio camera you talked about too, my dad brought it back from the US when he went there for work! The pictures were awful but it was amazing to see the first one up close and in action!
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