Desktop PC Card adapters?

[Pj]

Looking for a pc card adapter for the home computer. I am finding plenty of PCI/rear adapters, but I am looking for something that I can have in the front of the case (for front access. PITA to be in the rear)!

Anyone know of a make/model?

[JAYMZ]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820128003

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820128002

Those are the only 2 that I found. Once of them doesn't have a good review, but there are a TON of the PCI slot type adapters. You may want to improvise, adapt and overcome and just deal with it being in the back of the PC.

[tvsjr]

That first link is a reader... designed for flash cards in the PC Card form factor, not for a typical Cardbus PC Card. Yes, there were full-sized PC Card flash cards back in the day, before CF/SD/etc. came along.

You can't find a USB/Firewire --> PC Card converter for a reason. PC Cards sit on the expansion bus directly - the Cardbus variety (pretty much all of them these days) even support bus mastering, where the card talks directly to other devices on the bus without going through the CPU. Also, a Cardbus interface running DWord mode has throughput of 132MB/sec, clearly faster than the USB/1394 specs out there right now.

Like Jaymz said - adapt, improvise, overcome. It's gonna need to connect to the PCI bus and, while they do make extender cards for PCI, you don't want to be trying to use one in production.

[kf4sqb]

I don't know about a PCI interface, but I've got one here that's ISA interface with a design like you're looking for. It has a card that plugs into a standard ISA slot, and has a cable that goes to a chassis that goes in a 3.5" drive bay, or a 5.25" with an included adapter, and has two PC card slots. I don't know if its actually PCMCIA or Cardbus. There isn't really any information on it but an FCC ID number, LNQ750826. It also has a standard four-pin Molex plug on the back to accept a harddrive-type power plug. I don't have, nor have any idea about, drivers for it. If you can use it, make me an offer, for cash or trade. Hopefully, you can find some info on it via the FCC ID number.

[Wowbagger]

What are you trying to accomplish? What kind of device do you want to plug in to your computer?

If all you want is to write to a PCMCIA 2.0 Flash device, then a simple ISA adapter will do the job.

If you want to access a PCMCIA 2.0 Serial card, again, a simple ISA device will do.

If you are trying to access a Cardbus device - that gets tricky. Plain old PCMCIA 2.0 is basically an ISA protocol, running at 8MHz signaling - not hard to remote. Cardbus is more of a PCI type interface and runs much faster, and is therefor harder to remote.

[alex]

Just go to Verizon and buy the USB stick modem

I thought you had that one anyway - or maybe you returned it.

-Alex

[tvsjr]

Just go to Verizon and buy the USB stick modem

I thought you had that one anyway - or maybe you returned it.

-Alex

Nope... buy a Junxion Box or Kyocera KR1 and run Ethernet to it. Much more useful.

[kf4sqb]

I found some information on the PC card adapter I posted about earlier. It can be found HERE.

[JAYMZ]

That first link is a reader... designed for flash cards in the PC Card form factor, not for a typical Cardbus PC Card. Yes, there were full-sized PC Card flash cards back in the day, before CF/SD/etc. came along.

Huh, ain't that something. All I did was search PCMCIA and picked a few results. I guess it pays to read once in a while.

But like Terry said earlier... go for the Junxion Box type solution. An ambulance service that I know of uses those in every truck for their CF18 ePCR tablets that they are using now. At least with that it is also portable and scalable as well. And it's convenient because I have the security key for the APs too. Need quick internet? Go find an ambulance.