Information AboutPc Card |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT PC CARD | |
| computer buses | |
| standards organizations | |
| motherboard | |
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They were first called PCMCIA cards as the original standards were set by the '''Personal Computer Memory Card International Association'''. This awkward Initialism was jokingly Expanded as "People Can't Memorize Computer Industry Acronym s" or "Personal Computer Manufacturers Can't Invent Acronyms". A later revision of the PC card is known as '''CardBus'''. The PCMCIA is also developing a new notebook peripheral specification called ''' ExpressCard '''. The first PC cards (PCMCIA, with the more logical IBM meaning: Peripheral Component Microchannel Interconnect Architecture) were Type I, and supported actual Memory Card s (e.g. ATA Type I Flash Memory Cards), such as DRAM or flash memories. Type II cards added I/O support in addition to memory applications, and type III expanded functionality. The interface's role as I/O for various devices has largely superseded its role as a Memory Card, but this role did spawn a generation of flash memory cards that set out to improve on the size and features of ATA Type I cards ( CompactFlash , MiniCard and SmartMedia ). PCMCIA cards were designed by US-industry to compete against the JEIDA Card s that the Japanese portable computer industry had established as a standard for memory cards. Later, the two standards merged, and became JEIDA 4.1 or '''PCMCIA 2.0''' in 1991 . PCMCIA Pre-unification PCMCIA cards (version 1.x spec) were only Type-1 cards. PC CARD PC cards are PCMCIA 2.0 or later (JEIDA 4.1 or later) 16-bit PCMCIA cards and were introduced in that have since been replaced with USB , FireWire and now Serial ATA solutions, along with Flash Memory options. Memory cards such as ATA Type I flash memory cards continue to be available for the PC Card Type I. As the original name suggests, the first PC cards were for Memory expansion. However, the existence of a usable general standard for notebook peripherals led to all manner of devices being made available in this form. Typical devices include Network Card s, Modem s and Hard Disk s. The electrical specification for the PC card is also used for CompactFlash , so a PC Card CompactFlash adapter need only be a Socket adapter. The form factor is also used by the Common Interface form of Conditional Access Modules for DVB Broadcasts . CARDBUS CardBus are PCMCIA 2.1 or later (JEIDA 4.2 or later) 32-bit PCMCIA cards and were introduced in 1995 . The original PC Card bus was 16-bit, similar to ISA . CardBus is effectively a 32-bit, 33 MHz PCI bus, in the same physical form as the earlier cards. The notch on the left hand front of the card is slightly shallower on a CardBus card so a 32-bit card cannot be plugged into a slot that can only accept 16-bit cards. Most new slots are compatible with both CardBus and the original 16-bit PC Card devices. CardBus includes the Bus Mastering ability, which allows a controller on the bus to talk to other devices or memory without going through the CPU . Many chipsets are available for both PCI and CardBus cards, such as those that support Wi-Fi . EXTERNAL LINKS
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