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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.
Or is it just for notebooks?
Cover your eyes and click this link!
PCMCIA: People Cannot Memorize Computer Industry Acronyms
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
So, will this by "High speed" PC-Card or "Full speed" PC-Card?
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
They should have just used a PCI-X bus with a goddamn CARDEDGE CONNECTOR. You can support 1x, or 16x as you like, but do away with those stupid pins. Alternately I could see using some high-speed form of firewire, which may be easier to implement, especially since you could have it run down to normal (400Mbps) 1394 speeds. And yes, I know about 800Mbps firewire, and that 1 and 1.6Gbps flavors are both on the horizon.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Ugh. Remember the first PCMCIA cards, specifically the modems and the NICs? Remember the horrible, easy-to-lose dongles, and the fragile and unreliable pop-out connectors? Remember how THEN double-height PCMCIA cards came into vogue, since they were actually big enough to fit on some real connectors? And now it's back to the teeny cards all over again. I can understand a small form factor for pocket PCs, but SD/SM/CF/whatever more than fill the niche for solid state storage, and CF also can do everything else, rather adroitly. And it isn't as though the digital road warriors among us are staggering under the weight of current PCMCIA cards, even the ones that are (HORROR!) big enough to stick an RJ-45 into. In conclusion, who the hell cares about form factor?
The opinions stated herein do not necessarily represent those of anybody at all. Deal with it.
of course, there's the question of when you refer to PCMCIA if you're refering to the group, or the original memory card standard.
Now, as memory, yes, there are plenty of other standards, but there's the question of which one a computer manufacturer should standardize on -- portables put out by a company that also makes flash memory has a bias (ie, sony), but with an intermediary connection type, you can easily add additional capabilities to your computer, so that it can read the old legacy format that you're using in your digital camera.
And that's the key point -- adding additional capabilities. Not many people used PCMCIA [which as we all remember, means 'People Can't Memorize Computer Industry Acronyms'] for memory, but for modems, ethernet cards, SCSI connections, etc -- the sorts of things that a computer manufacturer decided the general public didn't need, but that you decided that you wanted.
With built-in modems commonplace, and there not being the whole X2/kFlex/kFlex/v.90 issues anymore, and no one's upgrading their internal 9600 baud modem, or getting a hardware based modem to replace their softmodem, modems aren't the key. And you don't need a 10bT or 100bT card to get on your LAN, as I haven't seen any new systems out there that didn't have 100 or better built in these days. Even wireless is starting to move to built in, and it's standardized, so most of 'em work together, or as reasonably as can be expected.
But that's the magic thing about PCMCIA, or whatever they want to call the slots this week -- we don't have to know what it's for. It's like the cigarette lighter in your car -- you can plug whatever the hell you want into it -- cell phone charger, power inverter, portable CD player, laptop, radar detector, hell, even a cigarette lighter. It's something that computer manufacturers can place into their systems to enable the consumer to have a choice of flexability.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
So what we have here are two cards of different widths, with a connector that's the same width. Here's what'll happen:
1) People will accidentally buy 54mm cards without realizing it won't fit in their 34mm slots
2) When you put a 34mm card in your 54 mm slot, your device will either have a big gap next to the card or will have to use an alkward and twice as expensive double door
3) The 22mm notch on the 54mm card will get caught on things and could possibly even be a weak point.
4) People won't realize that 34mm cards will work in their 54mm slot, or try to put it in on the wrong side, and such.
5) 5mm won't be thick enough for a variety of purposes
6) One of these card formats will be effectively abandoned (54mm) and the other will be widely adopted (34mm), obviating the work on the abandoned design and leaving a legacy of unsupported formats to confuse people on ebay auctions and such.
The logical thing to do would be what they do now: have single and double height cards, that work in a double slot.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
To make cards any thinner that Type 1 PC-Card's you need to use chip's with special packaging as standard surface mount components on a dual sided PCB just barely fits into a PC Card enclose. For instance most CF or smaller WiFi cards are a radio on chip solution which is generally more expensive than a design based around discrete components (at least initially, if you can get the paramaters right and the process down then ultimatly the single chip solution is probably cheaper). For ram you need to use the highest density chips available which tend to be expensive instead of a small aray of cheaper, less dense chips.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
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!
Is it just simpler or something? Why would serial be any better/cheaper/easier to make then a similar parallel device? If the cost is relatively the same, and the bandwidth per wire is the same, and you aren't making long cables that you don't want a lot of wires in, doesn't it make more sense to throw some extra lines in there to double, quadruple, etc. the total throughput?
Things like PCI slots and PCMCIA cards and RAM it only seems to make more sense to use a wider bus, to me at least.
Morphing Software
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...
"thinner, lighter, faster"
Sounds good, but I just took a look at the handful of CardBus cards that I already own, and they're already plenty thin, plenty light, and plenty fast. I've never said to myself "Man, these CardBus cards are really weighing my bag down." They're already small enough that I often can't find them, and I really don't have a problem waiting the few seconds that it takes to transfer 128MB of digital photos to my PowerBook via a CardBus adapter.
Frankly, I'd strongly prefer that industry stick to the current standard, and instead focus on coming up with nifty new CardBus products that add new capabilities to the computers I already have. Let's have a very affordable data acquisition card, for example. (I know data acquisition cards are already available, but AFAIK they tend to be pretty pricey.) Or a card that measures air quality wherever I am, or analyzes chemical samples.
ExpressCard stinks to me of planned obsolescence.
Don't even get me started on this!
At these prices, the damn things better make me breakfast, you follow?
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."
"The great thing about standards, is that there are so many to choose from"
www.rexguo.com - Technologist + Designer
It seems that everyone is complaining about the dimentions, and forgetting to complain about the bus...
Basically, this is just a USB2 port with a different connector. How in the hell does that make sense to anyone???
How well do you think your Firewire card is going to perform? That's right, not too damn well. They are actually going to a SLOWER and smaller standard, rather than a faster one, which is incredibly stupid IMHO.
In fact, the only reason I can think that anyone would want to do this, is because it would make USB2 far more common, AND since nothing would possibly go faster than USB2 speeds, it takes away ALL reasons to use any peripherals using any interface other than USB2...
Gee... Your firewire card on your notebook is slower than USB2. Guess we must surrender to Intel, and buy nothing but USB2 devices.
This whole Intel world-domination thing is giving me a big headache. Now notebooks don't have PS/2 connectors anymore, and USB Keyboards/Mouse have serious problems. So we are going from faster, more reliable technologies, to slower, less-reliable ones, just because that's what Intel wants. Screw 'em... I'm going to find a Firewire mouse if it's the last thing I do.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
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.
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