The 1972 IBM patent demonstrates that the Background section of Microsoft's patent was not entirely true when it claimed that file systems store data from only one file in any given block at a time.

Personal Digital Assistant running DOS with PCMCIA Flash drive data storage in 1991. Drive A: was the removable RAM drive with battery backup making it static memory. The drivers and format executables are in sundrv.zip attached. see: http://www.daniel-hertrich.de/95lx/ http://www.daniel-hertrich.de/95lx/#storage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_95LX

Commercial product March 1991 CDTV had built in PCMCIA like card slot and was treated as an extension to the file system

The Cambridge Z88 (sometimes referred to as the Cambridge Computer Z88, or Sinclair Z88), developed by Sir Clive Sinclair, was a forerunner to today's netbook computers. It had no hard drive, but used removable EPROM modules for its file system storage. From the user's perspective these modules behaved, via the operating system, like a hard drive or PC file system. The Z88 was available to the public in 1987.

General Electric, Salem Virginia, shipped a product called DMC, (Distributed Micro Controller) from 1980-1990 as part of their control systems. Application software in the form of Relay Ladder Logic (and ASM86 modules) was developed under VAX/VMS, using in house programming tools, and downloaded to target DMCs, where it was stored in EEPROM memory. By 1992 DMCs were obsolete and replaced by GE's next generation platform. GE has exceptionally long support for spare parts etc. so it should be possible to obtain more information/documentation from them. HMHA is a generic memory board that can be populated with RAM or EEPROM memory chips. The board populated with EEPROM chips I believe has a designation of EEPA perhaps with a DS3800 prefix. I could also probably locate schematic drawings of this board at one of my client's sites. I would also be willing to make a statement about my knowledge of this item. Hope this is relevant. Rick rjafrate@gmail.com

They are describing a heap data structure. J. W. J. Williams. Algorithm 232 - Heapsort, 1964, Communications of the ACM 7(6): 347–348. Robert W. Floyd. Algorithm 245 - Treesort 3, 1964, Communications of the ACM 7(12): 701.

The nokia communicator did have a flash file system and according to wikipedia was able to store data on MMCs.

US Patent 6904400 http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6904400.html Seem to cover many of the claims.

Article that anticipates a system that interfaces with the file allocation table system and allows flash devices to perform block erasures.

Article from the Computer Science Department at University of California Berkeley

Article from IEEE Micro

Article from the Department of Computer Science, Princeton University

Article from Computer.