Interesting Bluetooth adapter in CF I formfactor (PIC)

[gator]

This is yet another post in my "interesting" hardware series I found a very interesting bluetooth adapter for toothless thinkpads Usually bluetooth adapters are USB based, typically a dongle, or PCMCIA based (like the ones made by 3Com). When I was browsing for something else, I came across a bluetooth adapter built in a compactflash type 1 formfactor with the bluetooth antenna and hardware built in! It is made by socket communications and below is the company link:

http://www.socketmobile.com/products/ne ... ge=summary

The interesting part is that this card will fit in one of those ubiquitos type II PCMCIA CF card readers (IBM made one of these for its microdrive) and thus can give bluetooth capability for older laptops. This particular card has the same "terminals" as the CF card and is of the same size too:





AFAIK, the only difference between CF Type I and CF Type II cards is the card thickness. CF Type I is 3.3 mm thick and CF Type II cards are 5mm thick. A CF Type I card will operate in a CF Type I or CF Type II slot.

The only downside of this card is the cost - while your typical USB-dongle type is < $20, this card costs ~$100 if bought new (have not checked ebay). The bigglest advantage is that the card fits flush in the PCCard slot with the adapter (or if you are using the X series, completely flush with the CF card slot!) and thus you can leave it there.

Just thought I will mention this here, incase anyone is looking for such a card.

[gator]

Anycom also makes one of these, but it is NOT flush (extends out of the slot by 0.5 cm):

http://www.anycom.com/products/bluetoot ... tno=CC3044



available on ebay for $27 shipped with PC card adapter: item # 130159255399

[Harryc]

The X31's have a CF type II slot. Anyone know if these Anycom B/T cards will work in it? The Anycom card is listed as CF Type I.

[gator]

Harry, they should work in the X31's slot. To quote myself

AFAIK, the only difference between CF Type I and CF Type II cards is the card thickness. CF Type I is 3.3 mm thick and CF Type II cards are 5mm thick. A CF Type I card will operate in a CF Type I or CF Type II slot.