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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.
PCMCIA: People Cannot Memorize Computer Industry Acronyms
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.
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.
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!