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."

Comments

Too little too late

[Dancin_Santa]

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.

Better thinking from (the other) Brad

[poptones]

Stupid, stupid, stupid. If these people (or Brad) were thinking at all toward the future they would have made the cards BIGGER not smaller. Make a "double wide, quad height" standard and encourage (through licensing breaks) all laptop makers to incorporate at least one "quad height double wide" slot.

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."

This is stupid. But I have a better idea...

[laird]

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!