Home Page Forums MAME MAME Astron SoftCard format?

Trying to figure out some memory cards that were used, not in game systems, but in early (late 80s) computerized sewing machines, and have come across some that are most similar to the Astron SoftCard, used on the MSX. I initially thought they were like Sega Cards, which I believe were made by Mitsubishi, but the pin layout is slightly different, more like the Astron Card.
Does anyone know if the pinout has been figured out on these, or if they've been able to be dumped successfully? I'm not finding a lot of info out there, I found some technical info on Sega Cards, but not a whole lot, and not much info as a whole. Most of the Astron info is just a side note.
The part numbers on the card (with a microchip mark) don't really turn up anything useful either, I can find some random part listings, but no datasheets or anything like that.
[img]https://bit.ly/3RKyp3A[/img]
[img]https://bit.ly/3REM9Nn[/img]

Astron cards were once considered for the BBC Micro, but apart from a single promo photo there's no evidence that any were commercially produced.

The Acorn Communicator briefcase contains an expansion board which has 8 slots for Astron cards, presumably intended to add applications and storage, but non are known to exist.

Doesn't help with your question, but interesting to know that Astron cards were used elsewhere.

With the info you are giving here I can only find Astron Softcard Adapter

The pictured card really looks very similar to this



Just for informational purposes, do you have some manufacturer name and model numbers of the sewing machines working with the card in question?

Yeah, you probably found the same handful of sites I did...I hadn't known of that particular card type until now, I was trying to look into the history of the other types of card storage from that same era (BeeCard, MyCard, etc) and stumbled across the Astron Card, which looked the most like the card I have. There doesn't seem to be much info, just passing mentions and the occasional scanned ad here and there, I just hoped maybe I wasn't looking in the correct places, or there were some users here who might have been more familiar with it. If I was certain that it was the same as the astron card I would try and see if I could hunt down an adapter and decipher something from it, but I'm not even 100% sure they're the same and the adapters seem very scarce. Truly an obscure piece of media, and I didn't expect to come across a card in this format on a sewing machine of all things.

Information: The machine that uses this card is a Singer 6269/9900 "Ultra Unlimited", from 1989. Also known as the Symphonie 2000 in some regions. There is some information to be found about the machine here and there in terms of manuals and forum posts, even a few videos of people using it, but it doesn't seem to have been a highly popular machine, and nothing I've found approaches any kind of technical info on the memory cards (even the service manual, but that makes sense given it's a thing even a repair tech wouldn't have needed to know). It was the successor to the Singer 6268 from the early 80s, which also used memory cartridges, but in a more accessible format; the typical plastic shell over a PCB with an edge connector, that can be popped open revealing standard chips. I'm in the process of documenting the 6268 and a few other card/cartridge-based machines, and discovered the 6269, along with its weird memory cards (there are 9 known stich/design cards for both machines, identical other than the media format as far as I can tell). Both machines were manufactured in Italy, and it's not clear if it was by Singer or manufactured by a third party. Singer did have a factory in Italy at some point, but by the late 80s a lot of their production was outsourced to other companies and the machines were just rebadged versions of other companies' hardware.