Whoa.. ExpressCard slot. So where can I get a card?

Message

Ground Loop · #1 Post by **Ground Loop** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 4:58 pm

I was under the mistaken impression that the T43 would have two CardBus/PCMCIA slots, but when the top card would not insert, I took a peek inside and got a surprise. I have one CardBus and one ExpressCard/54 slot instead.

I did some searching around, and found a lot of circa 2003 fanfare for ExpressCard, with enthusiastic vendor support. Cool. So.... where are the cards? Ideally, I'd like a CompactFlash reader for fast photo downloads. Maybe a bluetooth card for those of us who didn't get one in the box. Anything I can offload from the other slot would be good.

But my search for actual cards-for-sale has turned up exactly Zero. Are there any?

kaplanfx · #2 Post by **kaplanfx** » Mon Jul 11, 2005 6:03 pm

Maybe I'm misunderstanding here, but I think that the max speeds for flash memory and bluetooth are still well below the bandwidth limits for PCMCIA/Cardbus. You can probably find a reader/bluetooth card for much cheaper if you go the PCMCIA route. It might even be a better idead to get one of those tiny usb bluetooth adapters so you could use it on another machine if you'd like (one without PCMCIA I mean).

-kaplanfx

emorphien · #3 Post by **emorphien** » Mon Jul 11, 2005 6:08 pm

Most card readers aren't even made for cardbus yet. There's only one cardbus CF reader I'm aware of, and the transfer rate of cardbus is still beyond the memory cards capabilities.

Ground Loop · #4 Post by **Ground Loop** » Mon Jul 11, 2005 6:37 pm

All true. Good points.

I have the Delkin CardBus32 CompactFlash reader, and it's the fastest ticket available right now. It slurps up 4GB cards at pretty close to the maximum card rate.

I thought perhaps an ExpressCard would be even better, and it would use my otherwise-useless upper card slot.

I have other PCMCIA cards I use often, so I'd like to free up the slot. Specifically, RS-232 is sorely lacking from the T43

(I'd gladly trade my useless parallel or IrDA port for a DB9 serial port.) To compromise, I bought a PCMCIA serial port. Works fine.

So does the IBM/Gemplus SmartCard reader card, also PCMCIA. Of course, it's one or the other, so some juggling is required.

If I get a Firewire card, it will likely be CardBus, but preferrably ExpressCard.

I'm just saying that it would be nice to use both slots instead of just one.. so what kind of functions might be for sale? So far, I've found zip. Is there any card at all shipping today?

#5 Post by **GomJabbar** » Mon Jul 11, 2005 6:46 pm

Ground Loop wrote:But my search for actual cards-for-sale has turned up exactly Zero. Are there any?

My try at multiple searches came up dry too. All I found was the following article, but no actual cards advertised for sale (in the US anyway).

http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,120746,00.asp

redrock · #6 Post by **redrock** » Thu Aug 11, 2005 7:47 pm

I found a couple of products that appear real.
Belkin in the US and Abocom in Tw.

http://www.belkin.com/pressroom/bulleti ... 0ExpCd.pdf
http://www.belkin.com/pressroom/releases/?sid=50
http://www.abocom.com.tw/product_detail.php?id=324

please report any others..

#7 Post by **GomJabbar** » Thu Aug 11, 2005 9:20 pm

Ground Loop wrote:I have other PCMCIA cards I use often, so I'd like to free up the slot. Specifically, RS-232 is sorely lacking from the T43 (I'd gladly trade my useless parallel or IrDA port for a DB9 serial port.) To compromise, I bought a PCMCIA serial port. Works fine.

Here is something you may be interested in Ground Loop. It is a Parallel port to Serial port converter. Link

JohnnyM · #8 Post by **JohnnyM** » Thu Nov 30, 2006 2:56 am

GemPlus, the makers of the hardware in the IBM SmartCard Security Kit, have an ExpressCard 54 version.

http://www.gemplus.com/products/gempc_express_card/

#9 Post by **tomh009** » Thu Nov 30, 2006 6:47 am

Ground Loop wrote:I did some searching around, and found a lot of circa 2003 fanfare for ExpressCard, with enthusiastic vendor support. Cool. So.... where are the cards? Ideally, I'd like a CompactFlash reader for fast photo downloads. Maybe a bluetooth card for those of us who didn't get one in the box. Anything I can offload from the other slot would be good.

Delkin has an ExpressCard/34 version of the CF reader:
http://www.delkin.com/products/adapters/expresscard34/

However, since it's designed for ExpressCard/34 (the Mac form factor) rather than ExpressCard/54, it's too narrow to fit the CF card inside. So there is a piece that alway sticks out, and then the CF card will protrude even further. Not great physical design.

How well does your Delkin CardBus adapter work? I find that at times it will max the CPU when I insert it (with a CF card) and that the only way to recover (in a reasonable amount of time) is to hard reboot. But there have been no driver updates since 2005 ...

coreman · #10 Post by **coreman** » Mon Dec 04, 2006 1:48 am

When in doubt, go to ExpressCard.org...pretty informative and has links to various cards that are available...

#11 Post by **underclocker** » Mon Dec 04, 2006 10:39 am

Let's just say it took a looong time for Bluetooth to make any sense either.

Whoa.. ExpressCard slot. So where can I get a card?

Whoa.. ExpressCard slot. So where can I get a card?

Re: Whoa.. ExpressCard slot. So where can I get a card?

Re: Whoa.. ExpressCard slot. So where can I get a card?

Who is online