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Hardware

Next-gen PCMCIA: Expresscard 168

Posted by michael from the forced-obsolescence dept.
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."
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Next-gen PCMCIA: Expresscard More

Next-gen PCMCIA: Expresscard

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  • Too little too late (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Dancin_Santa ( 265275 ) <DancinSanta@gmail.com> on Friday September 19, 2003 @10:57PM (#7009993) Journal
    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.

    • Re:Too little too late (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      you seem to forget that pcmcia is not just memory.

      it's also, ethernet (wired and wireless), scsi, modems, sound cards, etc.

      not all of these is for memory, and i'd hate to have to mess with my tiny pci slots with the computer on.

    • I beg to differ (Score:5, Insightful)

      by oneiros27 ( 46144 ) on Friday September 19, 2003 @11:14PM (#7010054) Homepage
      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.
      • I see where you're coming from, but I still think PCMCIA is about ready for the jump. The cigarette lighter analogy is pretty well right, only we have perfectly adequate cigarette lighters already and they're called USB ports. Or firewire ports. But increasingly they're not being PCMCIA ports for exactly the reasons you've illustrated.

        Personally I think SDIO is about to walk off with the "PC Card for the future" market, but this isn't based on any particularly great quantity of knowledge.

        Dave

    • Um no (Score:3, Interesting)

      by headbulb ( 534102 )
      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 embedd
    • PCMCIA != Cardbus. PCMCIA is ISA, Cardbus is PCI. Mechanically they're the same, but electrically the only significant thing they have in common is the location of the power pins. Host interfaces need a special layer of logic and auto-detection to support both, since ISA uses separate address and data buses, while PCI is a biriectional 32-bit bus plus a bunch of control lines.

      At any rate, I see absolutely no need for yet another serial interface. We already have SD cards, and for smarter/bigger devices, so
      • > Shit, USB barely even works as intended on most OSes

        You mean, like Linux [linux.com]? I personally have absolutely no problem with USB devices on Windows XP Professional [microsoft.com].

        Bitch and moan all you like, but can you hot-plug a usb mouse in a laptop running XFree and be able to use it immediately without quitting/restarting XFree and/or editing XF86Config? Thought so.
        • yeah, and you can't just plug it in the first time and not have to reboot. The same goes for just about any usb device. At least in linux, a quick reset of X fixes the problem, instead of having to take the whole machine down to install your new optical mouse.

          I don't know why you took a jab at linux. The original poster didn't take a jab at anything in specific except for USB. Sounds like you're a little bitter at having to install critical security patches a week.

        • Re:Too little too late (Score:2, Informative)

          by RML ( 135014 )
          > Bitch and moan all you like, but can you hot-plug a usb mouse in a laptop running XFree and be able to use it immediately without quitting/restarting XFree and/or editing XF86Config? Thought so.

          I'm using Red Hat 9.0, and the answer is a definite "yes, I can". I can plug in a USB mouse and use either the mouse or the builtin trackpad of my laptop interchangably, without touching XF86Config. It works exactly like it does in Windows XP.
        • Yep, do that all the time on my SeaNote laptop using a Microsoft Optical USB mouse. Of course, this is on FreeBSD. :)

          moused is running so that I have mouse support at the console, and I also have mouse support in XFree86. Can plug/unplug the mouse all I want. Can even use the built-in PS/2 trackpad, regardless of whether the USB mouse is attached or not.
    • I was at IDF (covering it for the INQ if you care), and I talked extensively to the PCCard people. There are two form factors, the rectangular one, and the wider one. Both have the same connector, one just has a wider end. The wide version will accept cards in the narrow form factor, and there is a neat mechanical guide that will just let you slip a narrow card into a wide hole. Very slick.

      The whole point of this is to bring a PCI Express slot to laptops. The USB functionality is rather stupid and unnecess

  • Do desktops use pc cards anymore? (Score:3, Funny)

    by xintegerx ( 557455 ) on Friday September 19, 2003 @10:58PM (#7009996) Homepage
    Or is it just for notebooks?
    • does the distribution of some PCI 802.11b adapters qualify? some of them are just a PCMCIA card hard-wired to a cirrus logic adapter chip.
      Otherwise...I imagine that there are a few systems that implemented smart-card security via PCMCIA smart cards that still have PCMCIA slots in desktops.

    • Re:Do desktops use pc cards anymore? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by ultrapenguin ( 2643 ) on Friday September 19, 2003 @11:57PM (#7010198)
      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've been looking for this sort of adapter for a while. Any ideas where I can pick one up?
        • They are usually part of the mainboard.
          Or as a full-length PCI card that contains things like audioboard, firewire, etc on the backplane, and 2 pcmcia slots at the front of the case.
          keep in mind, all these machines are custom-made Sis/Via/shittychipset motherboards and not any kind of standard shape.

          You can pickup a rear-opening cardbus PCI card adapter for about $50-$100 if you look around though.
    • I have one in my desktop. It is in the front in the space I would have for a 2nd floppy drive. I can plug in my laptop cards, my smartmedia readers, whatever. I quite like it.

  • PCMCIA (Score:5, Funny)

    by xybe ( 525773 ) on Friday September 19, 2003 @11:05PM (#7010026)
    PCMCIA: People Cannot Memorize Computer Industry Acronyms
    • I wish I could moderate the parent with a new /. moderation: "Helpful". I could never remember that acronym until now. I was so happy when it was proper just to say "PC card".
      • I found I could really impress people by using a lot of acronyms and tech words. Such as, My 802.11b PCMCIA Network Interface Card has experienced an IRQ conflict in interupt 5.

      • Re:PCMCIA (Score:3, Informative)

        by diatonic ( 318560 )
        PCMCIA actually stands for 'Personal Computer Memory Card International Association'. The parent was just a joke.

  • ... and fragile?! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mi ( 197448 ) <slashdot-2017q4@virtual-estates.net> on Friday September 19, 2003 @11:06PM (#7010027) Homepage Journal
    "thinner, lighter, faster"
    And will break even faster. I have three of four of PCMCIA ethernet card with broken "dongles" :-( Which you can't buy separately, and which you can not swap from one card to another, it seems.
    • Honestly, what do you expect with a dongle? Getting either a Type-III card with the jack built in or a Type II 3Com card with their Xjack connector would solve the dongle trouble.
      • Why use Type-III when there are so many Type-II cards out there with built-in connectors?

        3COM really screwed up when they released their built-in-connector-NIC as a type-III card. It takes up two slots on a laptop ... meaning you can't add any other PCMCIA/Cardbus cards, and you can't use it on a laptop that only has 1 Type-II slot.

        The Type-II built-in-connector NICs from SMC and Linksys (there are probably others by now) are so much nicer. The connector is external, so you have to put the NIC in the to
    • That's why you get the kind of card that extends outside the computer and has a jack built in. Those dongles are worthless and anyone who buys one is just asking to buy a new network card in a year.

    • Re:... and fragile?! (Score:2, Informative)

      by bitflip ( 49188 )
      I call BS, at least for network adapters. I've replaced my Xircom dongle at Fry's.

  • Vis a vis USB 2.x? (Score:5, Funny)

    by mcrbids ( 148650 ) on Friday September 19, 2003 @11:06PM (#7010031) Journal
    So, will this by "High speed" PC-Card or "Full speed" PC-Card?

  • Instead of all this hooha (Score:3, Insightful)

    by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Friday September 19, 2003 @11:09PM (#7010039) Homepage Journal
    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.
    • 1x? 16x? Sounds like you're talking of PCI-Express, not PCI-X (which is simply 64bit PCI over a 133MHz bus)

      I sense a name change in the near future.
      • I'm sick, and thus easily confused right now. I definitely meant PCI-Express. We certainly do have an exceptionally goofy soup (should that be gooey?) of stupid names right now.
    • The design will allow for PCI-Express connections. A 1x PCI-Express link allows for 400MB/s of data transfer - a lot more than Firewire. However I expect the first generation of ExpressCards will use the USB2 connector functionality, as that is more widespread now.

      PCI-X is a 64-bit wide bus for server applications. If you used that for a laptop expansion card it would be massive. This is the most silly idea ever.

      However modern laptops appear to have most things a person could want implemented already. I s
    • Pins ? I don't see pins. Where do you see pins ? IIRC this is a beam connector with low contact counts. The connector carries power(s) + 1 USB 2.0 connection (480 Mb/s) + 1 PCI-Express 1x connection (2.5 Gb/s) + 1 management connection.

  • So what? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Sneftel ( 15416 ) on Friday September 19, 2003 @11:13PM (#7010053)
    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?
    • In conclusion, who the hell cares about form factor?

      I'm certain laptop manufacturers care. They want to pander to the "thin, light, but powerful" market, and having to cram a dual-slot cardbus rig inside is going to make the laptop thicker.

  • What a preposterous design (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cryptochrome ( 303529 ) on Friday September 19, 2003 @11:14PM (#7010056) Journal
    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.

  • Increased cost (Score:5, Informative)

    by afidel ( 530433 ) on Friday September 19, 2003 @11:17PM (#7010066)
    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.
  • How about a Compact Flash slot for your Laptop.

    My PDA has a 802.11b in it's compact flash slot and I can get 4GB memory cards and GPS as well.

    Small, cheap and already here. I want one on my Laptop. Without an adapter.

  • Better thinking from (the other) Brad (Score:5, Interesting)

    by poptones ( 653660 ) on Friday September 19, 2003 @11:28PM (#7010108) Journal
    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."

    • The reason there will not be a converging standard between desktops and notebooks is all about money.

      You can buy a decent PC for 300$ these days. You can buy a decent notebook for about 1200$. Heck, just pick any pathetically simple accessory for your notebook and it costs as much as another desktop PC. Wireless network card ? only 149.99$. DVD-CDRW drive ? only 299.99$. Miniaturization my ass, they've been producing small gadgets forever, often sharing the same chipset as the larger desktop version
      • No, it's all about savings via mass production.

        A PC, no matter who the manufacturer has rarely more than 2-3 custom components these days (MB, Case and PSU for brand-name jobs) and even then the units are often built to a standard, and usually common across a number of models. Laptops have at best 1-2 standard parts (HDD, RAM) with everything else being specific to either to the model or at least the manufacturer.

        This emans you get massively more savings from parts commonality in a PC (Not to mention the
        • You should not even need a firewire or usb card with a moderately modern machine (even my p2/266 vaio has firewire). And yes, many of the most common cards are cheap - no one can complain about a $30 802.11 card.

          But try to put a video capture card (aka tv tuner) in your laptop and see how far you get. Or a high end sound card. yeah, you can buy external boxes - so what? especially for a sound card you should not need an external box - the parts just ain't that big. You could cram a reasonably high quality

          • First off, apart from Sony and Apple laptops, built-in firewire is extremely uncommon. USB 2.0 is relatively common on decent laptops of less than 1 years vintage, but many laptops on the market have no high-speed external busses. So USB 2.0 Cards and firewire cards are easy to get (As are combo cards).

            As to the sound card, they're external primarily because of I/O connectivity. You simply can't cram the necessary connectors for a high-end sound card onto a PC-Card so it's going to need a breakout box anyw
            • Cheap != low quality. The (now $50) PCI capture card in my system will make caps that are indistinguishable from the DVD source (I've done the comparisons in public forums and there was no definitive consensus which was the digital rip and which was analog). Firewire video capture is great if you're using a camera, but if you're using HDTV or an analog source all it buys you is added complexity and an extra box to find room for.

              And if you cannot tell the difference between the video from a $40 PCI capture

              • I can tell the difference. One looks like shit (PCI capture card) and one looks like not-quite shit. The cheap-ass components on the PCI card tend to make up for the USB devices lack of bandwidth. Remember, even DVD source isn't perfect, since it's compressed. But that DVD source is going to look better provided you aren't using RCA analog output on your DVD player. Which is one reason that you don't rip from analog sources unless you have to.

                You wnat good quality capture, get a Analog-DV bridge and captur
                • doesn't matter if the source is perfect or not - if the analog capture cannot be differentiated from the >i>digital source then you cannot magically "do better." Not with firewire, not with "lossless" and not with stupid, unfounded assertions in a discussion forum.
                  • Considering that on a decent TV, playing the same DVD via the 3 possible outputs (RCA, S-Video and Component) provides 3 distinguishable results, not being able to differentiate analog capture from the digital source is BS. And hesaid he couldn't differentiate analog capture form the ANALOG output of the DVD player, which is something else entirely.

                    My bet would be he's viewing the Analog outpt through the same POS TV Tuner card, and it's going to look like shit anyways. So, while he can't tell the differen
                    • Then perhaps in your excessive knowledge you could actually SAY WHAT YOU FUCKING MEANT.

                      I'm also wondering what fucking planet you're on, since I've yet to come across a TV Tuner card that accepts componenent input. And with a decent DVD palyer and TV, it's quite easy to distinguish between Video that's been output via composite or S-Video and component out (That why the damned things cost so much). Same thing for DVD Rips (90% of which are NOT the digital source, but recompressed copies thereof, and thus o
    • Well, first, that is wrong because laptops would become bigger not smaller.

      And 2...you are wrong, its not PCI-X. PCI-X is an extension of PCI's parallel bus for high-speed server applications. PCI Express is a high-speed (even faster) redesign of PCI that is backwards compatible in register design, but serial in signalling.

      Infact, what you probably don't know is CardBus is a PCI-based standard. It allows for a chip (modem, network interface, etc) to be designed once with both desktop and portable usage
    • If these people (or Brad) were thinking at all toward the future they would have made the cards BIGGER not smaller.

      My understanding is that the PCI-Express folks are working on a cartridge standard for "full size" cards (think PCI-card level functionality). This may come with the 2nd generation signaling rate (up from the 1st generation 2.5 Gb/s/lane).
      The goal is to allow users to add/remove cards from desktops/servers without having to open them (or even without having to shut them down). This should mak

  • This is stupid. But I have a better idea... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by laird ( 2705 ) <lairdp@gmail.TWAINcom minus author> on Friday September 19, 2003 @11:33PM (#7010126) Journal
    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!

    • Re:This is stupid. But I have a better idea... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Cheeze ( 12756 ) on Saturday September 20, 2003 @12:05AM (#7010223) Homepage
      makes sense.

      I always wondered what the cost savings in a $20 pci network card were over a $25 cardbus network card. Sure, the obvious $5 difference is important, but what about the money (time is money) it takes for a trained computer hardware monkey to shutdown the machine, take all of the cables out and take off the top of the computer, plug in a pci network card, and boot back up? I bet it costs more than $5.

      Having something like a compact flash card instead of a pcmcia/cardbus card would be beneficial also, as it is smaller, and you should be able to fit more of them in the same sized space. They also use less power than pci/pcmcia/cardbus since they are typically geared towards a PDA. I wonder if you could stack them vertical in a 5 1/4 computer bay, how many you would be able to fit in a row.

      Introducing one more plug-in interface type just muddies the water. What kind of interfaces is your next computer going to have?

      isa,pci,pcmcia,agp,vga,CF,MM,SD,IDE,WI-FI,USB,Fi re Wire,PS2,IRDA,DVD-RW?

      • I always wondered what the cost savings in a $20 pci network card were over a $25 cardbus network card.

        How about an $8.95 [cables4sure.com] network card? You can probably get them for $6 or less in bulk. There's the cost savings.

      • What kind of interfaces is your next computer going to have?

        isa,pci,pcmcia,agp,vga,CF,MM,SD,IDE,WI-FI,USB,Fire Wire,PS2,IRDA,DVD-RW?

        Heh, heh ... yup. Barring IrDA and PS2, replacing DVD-RW with DVD/CD-RW, and adding Sony Memory Stick(tm), the Fujitsu P5010 I just bought has all of the above, right out of the box. :-)

    • Re:This is stupid. But I have a better idea... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Wesley Felter ( 138342 ) <wesley@felter.org> on Saturday September 20, 2003 @12:09AM (#7010240) Homepage
      And what isn't built in can be added using CF cards.

      CF isn't fast enough to support modern I/O like 802.11g and FireWire 800, and it certainly isn't fast enough to support a video card.

      why not introduce a decent expansion mechanism for _desktop_ computers?

      If it costs $1 more, Dell won't do it. Device Bay was defined a few years ago; notice how no one used it. Likewise, PCs don't use CompactPCI even though it's mechanically superior to regular PCI.
    • It's just logical progression:
      PCMCIA -> ISA
      PC Card -> PCI
      Expresscard -> PCI-Express

      This is just the portable form-factor of the next expansion bus standard. As far as a desktop upgrade scheme, that's easy, it's called PCI-Express with edge connectors instead of slotted cards. It works well for SCSI and S-ATA so I don't see why it can't be done for PCI-Ex if Intel et al thought it would sell. Besides in general Intel and company DON'T want to sell you upgrades to your desktop, they want yo

    • 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've suggested this before, and the replies have usually posed this question: How would a plastic shell dissipate the heat that modern 3D accelerators put out?

      Poorly.

      • Re:Heat (Score:2)

        by laird ( 2705 )
        The cartridge doesn't need to be airtight -- it could be vented, or like some of the larger video cards now, it could have fans mounted directly on the card (in which case the shell might even keep the card cooler by controlling the airflow).

  • I don't get it (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    PC cards suck. Why make us suffer all of the complexities of supporting a new form factor when all it is is the mix of two interface types that should stand on their own?

    What's wrong with plain ol' USB2.0? It seems to be a well-defined spec with LOTS of products on the market. It's fast enough for the most common applications used with laptops:
    - Netwroking (Ethernet, Modem, Wireless)
    - External Storage (Drives, CD/DVD, Flash)
    - Input/output devices (Scanners, Printers)

    Instead of a PC card - supp
    • I think the benefit of a PC card is that it is internal. As upposed to having an external network adapter that is bulky, more apt to fall or break, and harder to move if you are walking around with the laptop. All though more USB and firewire ports would be benefitial I think the PC card is nessecary to maintain a compact and sleek laptop design.
    • Is it possible to make an external PCIX connector that doesn't limit developers to the form factor of a card?

      Interesting idea; you could probably run PCI Express (not PCI-X) over Fibre Channel cabling.
  • How can I stop touching my dongle?

    I just ordered a 15" PB that has a modem, network, wireless and Bluetooth built in. It has a PCMCIA slot that I'll most likely end up using for compact flash or if I get crazy, GPS?

    I just don't see that much use for one anymore. Why a new form factor? Am I missing some killer app I haven't heard of?

    Really, this dongle thing is getting out of hand...

  • Whats so great about serial? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Ark42 ( 522144 ) <slashdotNO@SPAMmorpheussoftware.net> on Friday September 19, 2003 @11:43PM (#7010160) Homepage

    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.
    • Yes it is simpler. Simpler circuitry, although at much higher speed. Less components, thus lower costs. Less wires, thus lower cross-interference. Smaller size, easier to fit into smaller devices. None of these taken separately would be enough, but when you put them together they're hard to beat.

  • Cardbus, PC Card, JEIDA, ExpressCard (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 19, 2003 @11:43PM (#7010162)
    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...
    • The answer to why USB, is of course that this is being managed by Intel and USB is Intel's baby. Wrt Firewire Intel has major Not Invented Here syndrome.
    • Why USB seems obvious to me. For some applications a 1x PCI-Express connection is going to be overkill. Think smart card readers (how many bits/s ?), modems, serial adapters (e.g. to get data from older equipment like a weather station, to slide projectors, home automation equipment, etc). Heck, USB 1.1 would be enough (or already too much). USB2 is today's equivalent of a cheap RS232 connection. When it's enough, it's enough. You do not always need 2.5 Gb/s :-)

      Firewire doesn't make much sense as an intern
      • More to the point, many reference implementations and even single chip solutions for common peripherals (WLAN cards, modems, storage devices etc) already exist with USB or USB2 connectivity, whereas PCI-Express devices are somewhat rarer than hens' teeth right now. Implementing a USB2 interface allows the physical standard to be implemented and become widespread quickly. This also goes a little way towards explaining why USB was chosen over FireWire - how many FireWire WLAN adaptors have you seen recently?
  • "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 indust
    • Manufacturers want a smaller standard for smaller devices. Having the same peripheral interface in your desktop, laptop and PDA would be very possible (at least physically :-) with cards the size of ExpressCard.

      As far as speed goes, yes, CardBus is plenty fast enough for its current applications, but its limits will be reached in the near future (eg gigabit ethernet will max it out nicely). That's the point when you should ratify a faster standard, not when the lack of speed really starts to bite.
  • This article isn't a dupe, but Expresscard was code-named NEWCARD and was discussed on Slashdot a month ago [slashdot.org].

  • WTF - Worst PCMCIA buys ever... (Score:4, Funny)

    by teamhasnoi ( 554944 ) * <teamhasnoi AT yahoo DOT com> on Saturday September 20, 2003 @12:35AM (#7010316) Journal
    I went looking for PCMCIA stuff that wasn't a network, wireless, firewire, USB or memory card and found this [pcconnection.com] and this. [cdw.com]

    Don't even get me started on this [pricegrabber.com]!

    At these prices, the damn things better make me breakfast, you follow?

    • Those are generally memory expansion cards for devices - they use them as RAM. You'll notice that they're listed as SRAM cards or some such designation. I've got an older printer (HP?) that takes an 8MB card for memory expansion.

      They do have uses - not as storage though.

  • Desktop uses? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Saturday September 20, 2003 @01:42AM (#7010474) Homepage Journal
    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.
    • I agree -- if only the last attempt at this had succeeded.
    • Frankly, I'm sick of PCI. Lots of devices these days really don't need to be screwed in directly to the motherboard.
      I can vouch for that. I almost never put the screws in. Hell, I never even put the metal covers over the empty slots.

  • Standards joke (Score:4, Funny)

    by rexguo ( 555504 ) on Saturday September 20, 2003 @02:38AM (#7010595) Homepage
    "The great thing about standards, is that there are so many to choose from"
  • seriously... no more cards.

    firewire or usb. that's it. preferably not even usb. everything can be adapted to the firewire bus. that's it. end of story.

    it's an organization looking for a reason to keep existing.

  • Forget about the dimentions... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by evilviper ( 135110 ) on Saturday September 20, 2003 @04:32AM (#7010806) Journal
    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.

  • Color me confused (Score:4, Interesting)

    by wowbagger ( 69688 ) on Saturday September 20, 2003 @10:53AM (#7011768) Homepage Journal
    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 [aeroflex.com] 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 [aeroflex.com], 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.
    • The point of PCCARD style interfaces is that they're for the peripherals that nobody's thought of yet. Which is why you can't think of them.

      That point aside, my laptop didn't come with a wireless LAN card; the PCCARD slots allow me to add one. I also have a wired LAN card to replace the internal one that died and a compactflash card reader. Now, all of these components have been implemented as USB devices, but in all three cases the PCCARD implementation is smaller and easier to carry around, and I don'
  • I'd like to be able to upgrade the video processor, the CPU and the memory. Everything else I can upgrade through usb/firewire.

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