Is PCMCIA dead Year 2013

[ThinkPad560X]

So I still use PCMCIA on all my IBM ThinkPads and I use the CF "Compact Flash" as my SSD in them. I really love how my X41T can read the pcmcia as a main hard drive making it easier for me transfure the CF to another computer. saves me money from having the buy the CF adapter to IDE.

Being that the only Lenovo ThinkPad I own is the SL500, a 2008, it has no PCMCIA slot, only a express and viewing newier thinkpad images online they dont seem to have the slot aswell, I am seeing power USB and USB 3.0 now but to me PCMCIA was like the PCI slot for a laptop. Really like the double pcmcia that IBM ThinkPads R40-T30/below had. USB is nice but then you have eathier the flash drive or wire hangout while a CF card adapter of the pcmcia would be perfect and not be stuck out.
Just some things I like about pcmcia.
So being that 2013 is coming is the PCMCIA dead? Will laptops soon obsolete, since I've been hearing the big thing lately iPad and iPad mini and Microsoft surface tablets.

[dr_st]

PCMCIA/Cardbus is as dead as PCI.

They have been succeeded by the newer and faster ExpressCard/PCI-Express standards.

[twistero]

PCMCIA/Cardbus is as dead as PCI.

They have been succeeded by the newer and faster ExpressCard/PCI-Express standards.

This. There's no reason to put PC card slots on new machines if they don't even use PCI internally.

Also, if I'm not mistaken, the ATA mode of PC cards (which a simple PC-card-to-CF adapter would use) only support PIO, not UDMA, so using a CF card in PC card slot with such an adapter will severely limit its performance.

For the use case mentioned in OP (removable storage that does not stick out), an SD card would be a great choice since most new laptops come with an built-in SD card reader.

[Radioguy]

Still, if you have an older model that has PCMCIA, it's nice to find a way to make use of it if you can't replace the slot with something else.

[TuuS]

I've looked into using Compact Flash as an SSD, but it's my understanding the design would render the device unusable very quickly because of CF limit on rewrites. I don't know the actual specs on them but from what I've read the only way to do this would be using an embedded version of the OS, so basically all the files on it would be read-only, otherwise things like virtual memory and temp files would quickly cause the CF device to start dropping sectors.

As far as the CF to IDE adapters go, I've seen them selling at less then $5, and was considering getting some for some old computers I have, until I read up on the limitations.

However, if I'm incorrect regarding this I'd be glad if someone could enlighten me.


Edit: My apology if my post seems "off topic", but since the original poster was discussing using a compact flash card as a bootable SSD, I thought it would be good to open a discussion on the viability of doing this. As I stated, I've heard you'd basically burnout or use up the cards usefulness very quickly and I imaging your system could become unstable as disc writes fail.

[Radioguy]

Although it initially slipped my mind, a "Stashcard" is probably the cheapest way to make productive use of a PCMCIA slot.

I've chosen to forgo using one for now, since my T61 is one of several models that use a single shutter to protect both the PCMCIA and ExpressCard slots. Unless used in tandem with an ExpressCard any single PCMCIA card in use is more noticeable, since it leaves the shutter half-open and increases the interior exposure to dust.

It would also draw attention to the "stash" and I share my Wrigley's with no one.

[RealBlackStuff]

You can buy cheap Dummy cards to fill the gap!

[DaKKS]

You can buy cheap Dummy cards to fill the gap!

Or just go with USB cards...

As for how dead PCMCIA is, as a doornail. Hell, even express card has one foot in the grave...

[ThinkPad560X]

Ive been using the CF HDD methood for a few years and im upgrading to real SSD drives now. the write speeds for CF are really slow, takes a few minuts to load windows. Wish they were faster as it seems easier to swap out a card and place in another. And SSDs are coming down in price.

Does anyone know how to get the Portable Drive Bay 2000 using PCMCIA card as plugin to read as an external Hard drive during boot? Im getting a 32GB SSD for all the Windows versions I own to try out in any one of my ThinkPads from Win95-Win8 "32GB for 7 and 8" I have my T30 out now and its orginal 40GB HDD is almost dead from reading and writing, getting a standard 16GB SSD for it, for its main HDD slot.

[Kasm279]

You can buy cheap Dummy cards to fill the gap!

I use a spare HP media remote

[ThinkPad560X]

I was woundering do they make a 16-bit PCMCIA card with USB ports? I have a dynex PCMCIA 32-bit one that has 2 USB ports. And 16-bit only works on older ThinkPads 560 and below.