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Standard Brewing For PC Card Replacement 'Newcard'
winston_pr writes "The details on the successor to the PC Card is starting to take form with details being given in this article at Nikkei Japan. The standard is scheduled to be finalized in 2003, while the first PCs with NEWCARD slots are expected to ship in the second half of 2004. Will this mean the end of all these crazy SD-card connection based peripherals?"
In new computers, things will be smaller and faster.
Thanks!
My Ass hurts.
Isn't this the wrong way to go about it? Usually the hardware is built and then the standard is derived from that, guaranteeing compatability. What if the standard requires something that turns out impossible to implement? Everything will be broken. We'd never have cool tech like FireWire, PCI, and SDRAM if hardware producers had to wait for a standard before they even started working on products.
Boromir, son of Faramir, King of Gondor and Minas Tirith
Can some informed person speculate as to what the purpose of a PC card is in the day of Firewire800? Does a PC card have better bus access or something? Is it a form factor issue (e.g. its not dangling but is sort of part of the laptop?) With laptops getting smaller and PC-cards tending to get larger and bulging outside the chasis, the form factor issue looks less distinct to me. so why PC cards?
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
This is a new standard to replace the old standard being created by the same association (PCMCIA) as the old standard. This new standard will allow gigabit ethernet on a card and will be much slimmer than the old cards. They are also talking about making it built into slimline desktops.
Most modern laptops seem to come with an array of smartmedia, compact flash, USB, Firewire, integrated 802.11, and integrated ethernet, so I don't see what the big deals is. Granted, it's nice to be able to swap things into the computer, bit if excessive numbers of dongles are going to be required, just give me the device in USB or firewire, and let the device be the dongle. That way I don't have to carry around this metal wafer-type box too.
the only two PCMCIA devices that I use on my laptop regularly (which is two years old or more) is the wireless ethernet adapter, which doesn't have a dongle as such, and the compact flash reader, because the laptop is too old to have these features built in. Next unit I buy will probably have them integrated.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Someday, the peripheral that hardware and software makers may want on all PCs is the Credit Card reader.
Want your next Windows Update? Please insert your Credit Card into the reader. What, this is Linux? SCO needs another swipe of your card, please.
Why stop there? I can see it now: "CNN... the most trusted... and expensive... name in news."
The problem with socialism is that they always run out of other people's money. - Margaret Thatcher
Links:
PC Mag
Extreme Tech
I don't know about the rest of you, but I have not noticed the bandwidth limits of my pcmcia card. Granted I don't run a gig-bit ethernet, video equipment (firewire takes care of it), or scsi cards, but I don't use my laptop to do that kind of stuff. What I have noticed is the slowness of my laptop hard drive, which will not be able to handle all this new bandwith anyways. Though it is always nice to have more bandwith and smaller cards, there are more important things that need to addressed.
P.S.
I hope this NEWCARD uses less power.
because there are millions of laptops that are not equipped with USB 2 ports. Thats why there are PCMCIA USB 2 cards.
Many laptops have only 1 USB port( those made before 2002).
If you already have a USB mouse, where can you plug in that webcam, USB external keyboard etc?
Many laptops made before 2002 do not have Firewire ports. If you want to use the iPod and camcorders, you need a Firewire PCMCIA card.
Take 56k modems and 10/100 ethernet ports. Again, older laptops do not have them onboard. You need PCMCIA cards for that.
Then you have the case of wi-fi. Unless your laptop is a Centrino, there is no way of going wifi without a wireless card.
Firewire 800 is "only" in the Macs now. It might come to the PC soon but it will take a while to come to laptops(~6 months). Firewire 400 is the norm for laptops.
Doubleplusgood!
oh brave new world, that has such people in it!
While that may be true today, dont be suprised if in the near future the 'homeland security' department will mandate you use 'approved hardware and software' before you can get online. And use of anything other will be considered criminal...
Then watch it expand to other conutries..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
No, of course not. It just adds one more peripheral standard.
Also means getting another pocket or drawer hold more crap in. Smaller, yes, but more diverse.
"Ah, this model uses Newcard and SD and has an adapter for PCMCIA so you can plug in another adapter for your CF card, blah, blah, blah."
Funny how more octopus-like compact electronics get when you finally have everything hooked up to it.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar