PCMCIA? What for?

[EricBrian]

What kind of cards do you have for your Mac's PCMCIA slot?

Just asking because I've never seen cards for it.

Thanks.

 

[OutThere]

You can get cards for:

Gigabit Ethernet
USB 2.0
FW 800
WiFi
Bluetooth
SATA

and many, many more connectivity options that really open up possibilities for your Powerbook.

 

[EricBrian]

... many more connectivity options ...

Ah... Thanks for the info. But my new 17" PB has all of that.

Update:

Ah, found it... serial ATA.

 

[MovieCutter]

SATA= Serial ATA, the hard drive interface being used in Power Macs, iMacs, and some PC laptops. It's faster than the current interface. Other than that, I have a media card reader in my PCMCIA slot so I can just plug the card from my digital camera into that and not have to carry an extra USB cable around...that and tranferring the pictures this way saves battery life on your camera...very useful when on vacation.

 

[Sic]

is PCMCIA hot swappable? or can you get nice discrete ones? i'd like a CF reader PCMCIA but all the cards i've seen are stupid and stick out

 

[EricBrian]

... I have a media card reader in my PCMCIA slot ...

Nice. Since my PB doesn't recognize my camera (USB), that would be ideal for me, too. I could just pull out the card out of the camera and put it in the media reader.

Thanks.

 

[0098386]

is PCMCIA hot swappable? or can you get nice discrete ones? i'd like a CF reader PCMCIA but all the cards i've seen are stupid and stick out

As far as I'm aware it is hot swappable. I have a PCMCIA wifi card for my laptop and I'm free to take it out and do whatever.

 

[FocusAndEarnIt]

i would think pretty much all the ones for PC, just do your homework and find 'em

 

[mkrishnan]

As far as I'm aware it is hot swappable. I have a PCMCIA wifi card for my laptop and I'm free to take it out and do whatever.

Yes, it should be. If you have a memory card in a PCMCIA holster, then you want to trash it in MacOS before you eject it. But puhlease. You don't have to restart a Mac for all that much.

Other things, btw, to do with the slot...I'm pretty sure that there are GPS devices for the PC card slot, and GPRS or EDGE modems.

 

[cjc343]

I use a second Wifi card sometimes for passive network sniffing, etc...

I'd really like to get a few more DVI ports though...

There are a few features that it has for Windows not available for Mac (yet?) that I'd want though... so I'll make do with a single DVI port... if only I could use my S-Video port at the same time... things would be so much easier...

 

[mduser63]

One card I'd like to put in my PowerBook if it had a PCMCIA slot (it doesn't) is an EVDO card. Of course that'd require Verizon or Sprint to start EVDO service here first, and me to get a 15" or 17" PowerBook.

 

[annk]

I use my CF card in mine - like others have said, saves the battery on digital cameras, and is also useful for transferring files on occasion.