Slashdot Mirror
Next-gen PCMCIA: Expresscard
An anonymous reader writes "According to this article at WindowsForDevices, the PCMCIA trade association rolled out version 1.0 of its next-generation standard for modular mobile and desktop computer expansion at this week's Intel Developer Forum in San Jose, CA. Dubbed "ExpressCard", the new standard is "thinner, lighter, faster" than the group's previous PC Card standards, according to PCMCIA chairman Brad Saunders. ExpressCard achieves its space reduction by replacing the legacy parallel buses of the first and second generation PCMCIA card standards with state-of-the-art, high-speed serial connections, following a trend common in current computer system design."
The PC Card bus is the only decent feature of PCMCIA. The size of the cards is a joke, despite "there are also some applications which have a physical requirement for the wider module, such as CompactFlash card readers, security card readers, and 1.8-inch rotating media". The embedded industry is moving towards SD/MMC cards as the standard storage memory module. What's most interesting about SD/MMC is that it is based on a serial bus, not the PCMCIA cardbus. So PCMCIA's influence is actually declining.
But they now designed a new bus which will replace cardbus. It remains to be seen whether anyone is interested in this technology. It may be too little to late. PCMCIA's day has passed, and these new gigantic cards aren't going to save them.
I am taking you more as a troll then anything.
You hate the standerd so you really dont' see a use for it. That may be, but who's to say that it doesn't have a use. (embedded etc)
There are a few incorrect things you have to say about sd/mmc SD is a parrellel technology while mmc is serial. (don't ask me how it works) As far as SD/MMC getting into embedded markets you are only correct in the consumer market (such things as palms/pda's/mp3 players).
Compact Flash still leads a healther life in the true embedded market (things like pc104/pc104plus, etc) If you have ever taken apart a pcmcia to compact flash adaptor you would see that it's pretty much straght through. So theres your smaller standerd right there.
You assumed too much. You didn't Think of other peoples uses. There are plenty of things this new standerd could go towards. But no you assume that since the cards are huge (I wonder is pci/agp/pci-x huge, if so wouldn't you want a new standerd like this for the desktop platforms?) They are of no use. Sure we could use sdio to replace pcmcia but making things that small cost's money..
So did you think before you posted.
You ALREADY are using the PCI-X interface, so you share that functionality with desktops. So now that laptop makers will have these larger slots they can plan for more comprehensive peripherals - like real tv tuner cards that support HD, higher capacity solid state/MRAM memory cards, etc.
So now you can actually build a complete PC - stuffed with truly useful cards that perform equally well on either platform - and you never have to open the case. We coyld have desktop systems that supports a full battery of "2x4" cards in the back, USB and Firewire and all the rest. And because the cards now can be used on either a desktop or laptop platform, peripheral makers have only ONE standard to support, which makes all their products both cheaper for the end user AND cheaper to produce.
But then what do I know? I don't even spell my name with a "u."
I can't figure out what application this would make sense for.
For desktop machines, these compact cards are too expensive (compared to dirt cheap PCI cards) so nobody will use this for adding devices to their desktop machines, just they way they don't use PCMCIA cards on desktop machines now.
For laptops, almost everything is built in. Ethernet, modem, wireless, optical drive.
And what isn't built in can be added using CF cards. Sure, very few laptops have CF card slots built in, but none of them have these new PC card slots built in. And CF is becoming pretty standard for adding new capabilities (bluetooth, 890.11, ethernet, etc.) to high-end PDA's. And manufacturers aren't going to replace CF card slots with these much larger cards.
And for more limited uses (RAM cards) there is SD/MMC.
So I think that it's more likely that manufacturers will start putting CF and SD/MMC slots into laptops than that they add these new card slots.
Rather than introduce a new slot for portable devices, why not introduce a decent expansion mechanism for _desktop_ computers? There, consumers have to unscrew cases, plug fragile cards into slots, etc., -- there would be some real benefit in a consumer friendly desktop expansion mechanism. If people could upgrade their video card (for example) by pulling a cartridge out of a slot and snapping in a new one, everyone wins! I don't think it'd cost much (plastic shell, doors and guides in the cases). Ditto for optical drives -- I've never understood by laptops can swap optical drives, etc., but not desktops. Sure, it'd cost a tiny bit more, but think how much easier it would be to sell upgrades to consumers if they didn't have to crawl into an electrified box!
Enable 3D printed prosthetics!
Ever notice they usually get early PCCard history wrong?
The first generation of interoperable cards were JEIDA cards, which were memory and supplanted by the incompatible PCMCIA...
Since ExpressCard uses PCI Express as its primary bus, why is there a need for a USB interface? And why USB? Firewire is a much better choice.
And if use USB, why not also have FireWire?
This will definitely screw people over. The physical format is incompatible with older PCMCIA, PCCard, Cardbus cards.
Unlike before...
I don't know about new PCs in U.S., but in japan just about any brand-name PC (Fujitsu/NEC/Sony/etc) comes with at least one or most of the time 2 cardbus pcmcia slots on the case. They are usually advertised as slots for digital camera memory cards etc, to save you from buying a usb/whatever adapter for the same purpose. But they are normal cardbus slots, so you can put in your scsi cards, 1394 adapters, etc. So yes, I'd say its pretty much standard to have them in desktop PCs.
I hope that whatever standard they go with (does it really need to be smaller?) they'll make it a standard for desktops as well. Frankly, I'm sick of PCI. Lots of devices these days really don't need to be screwed in directly to the motherboard.
Maybe putting these particular bays on desktops isn't all that important, though it would be nice to have interoperable devices between desktop and laptop. But I would like to see PCI/AGP slots replaced with some sort of easy to install cartridge'esque approach. Imagine hot-swappable network and sound cards. Imagine popping that new Sound Blaster card into your laptop. I could keep going 'imagining', but I think the point is clear.
Wouldn't it be nice if the peripherals that worked on a desktop also worked on a laptop? That's more than possible today.
"Derp de derp."
OK, this whole thing confuses me, and I am an embedded systems engineer. I've seen this in the trade journals, and I don't get the marketing forces this is supposed to answer.
Consider this: my old laptop that I purchased in 1996 had 3 PCMCIA slots. This was good - I could have my NIC, my SCSI card (for tape backups), and my modem all in place at the same time.
However, any laptop of recent vintage will have at least USB2.0 High speed if not IEEE-1394 (FireWire), so this obviates the need for the SCSI card. It will have built-in Ethernet (at LEAST 10/100 MBits, if not 10/100/1000!), so there goes the Ethernet card. It will have a build in (Win)Modem, removing the need for the modem (at least for Windows users, and very likely for Linux users as well now-a-days).
So what is left for the PCMCIA slots? Flash readers? Built-in, or USB. Video capture? (like you need that in a laptop anyway, but....) Firewire. Video acceleration (MPEG decoding)? Faster CPU. 3D acceleration? Built in.
I can see using PCI-Express (the PROPER name for the new, high-speed serial interface) for the docking station interface - but even then, what do you really need to add to a laptop now?
So what is the point of a PCCARD style interface? OK, I may not be able to get a Firewire tape backup device (or maybe I can - I haven't looked since I don't need one), but if I want to back up a new laptop I can use the network or just dump everything to a Firewire drive.
Now, some may say "Yes, but what about embedded devices". And I can say, as a professional, "What about them?" Either what I am building is a small, simple device, where I would rather build in a USB 2.0 host adaptor, or it is a big, hairy multi-CPU monster that has what it needs built-in. Really, in neither situation would I want to go to the difficulty of adding a PCMCIA-style interface. Been there, done that, and had far too many headaches with people expecting to install J. Random Card and have it work. Sorry, but unless you are using Embedded Windows, you cannot just install the driver disk and go. And if you are using a Windows deriviative, you DON'T WANT users installing their own software (unless you really like watching Customer Service drown).
Again, unless we start seeing laptops with their video on a card, PCMCIA style interfaces are no longer the best engineering decision. Let them die.
www.eFax.com are spammers