alright, I've gotten to where I can read and write a sector from my compactflash card. and now I want to be able to write to the thing into an existing notepad file. I have found some fat16 info, but I haven't found any info on how a notepad file is stored on a fat disk. anyone have a reference for this type of info? thanks I remember seeing a web page that has a smart card on a little board with an rs232 port and some other info, but I cannot find this link at the moment either. thanks for any help -- http://www.piclist.com hint: The PICList is archived three different ways. See http://www.piclist.com/#archives for details.