Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

Hi,

May i use compact flash card with pcmcia adapter on omnibook 300?
Is it work in DOS without drivers like a hard disk?

bye
--

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

"(...)" <maestoso@pl.onet.poczta> writes:
> May i use compact flash card with pcmcia adapter on omnibook 300?
> Is it work in DOS without drivers like a hard disk?

Yes, you should be able to use it just like the full sized flash cards
from back then. There may be a maximum size limit, like 64 MB or something.

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

I disagree. It will not be reconized in DOS only Windows.
Bob


"Paul Rubin" <http://phr.cx@NOSPAM.invalid> wrote in message
news:7x3c0zley1.fsf@ruckus.brouhaha.com...
> "(...)" <maestoso@pl.onet.poczta> writes:
> > May i use compact flash card with pcmcia adapter on omnibook 300?
> > Is it work in DOS without drivers like a hard disk?
>
> Yes, you should be able to use it just like the full sized flash cards
> from back then. There may be a maximum size limit, like 64 MB or
something.

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

"Bob" <bobdawn1@verizon.net> writes:
> I disagree. It will not be reconized in DOS only Windows.

Was there something special about the HP flash card?

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

"Bob" <bobdawn1@verizon.net> wrote in message
news:nP07d.12387$sP2.4879@trndny04...
> I disagree. It will not be reconized in DOS only Windows.
> Bob
>
>
> "Paul Rubin" <http://phr.cx@NOSPAM.invalid> wrote in message
> news:7x3c0zley1.fsf@ruckus.brouhaha.com...
> > "(...)" <maestoso@pl.onet.poczta> writes:
> > > May i use compact flash card with pcmcia adapter on omnibook 300?
> > > Is it work in DOS without drivers like a hard disk?
> >
> > Yes, you should be able to use it just like the full sized flash cards
> > from back then. There may be a maximum size limit, like 64 MB or
> something.
>
>
Bob:

As I recall the Omnibook 300 was built so it's BIOS recognized the PCMCIA
card drives as it's main drive. (C) It is likely that it will recognize the
flash card drive without issue. There is likely to be a size limit though.
As an example I have an old LX100 that recognizes those cards just fine,
under DOS. So, you know what I would do? Take it to your local computer
store, and ask to try it in your computer.

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

First, the correct terminology is "PC Card" not "PCMCIA Card".

You can use it, but generally not in DOS unless you have installed a
full "card and socket services" package, and possibly device-specific
drivers. Getting this properly installed and configured is difficult.


(...) wrote:

> Hi,
>
> May i use compact flash card with pcmcia adapter on omnibook 300?
> Is it work in DOS without drivers like a hard disk?
>
> bye

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

Barry,

When did the name change? Or are the PCMCIA cards that I use something
different than the PCcards that I plug into the existing PCMCIS ports in
either of my older laptops?

Matt Colie

Barry Watzman wrote:
> First, the correct terminology is "PC Card" not "PCMCIA Card".
>
> You can use it, but generally not in DOS unless you have installed a
> full "card and socket services" package, and possibly device-specific
> drivers. Getting this properly installed and configured is difficult.
>
>
> (...) wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> May i use compact flash card with pcmcia adapter on omnibook 300? Is
>> it work in DOS without drivers like a hard disk?
>>
>> bye

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

The name changed about a decade ago, in the 1990's. PCMCIA is the name
of the organization that sets the standard for the slots, but sometime
around 1996 they formally changed the name of the slots themselves to
"PC Card" slots.

[PCMCIA = PC Memcory Card Industry Association. When they were formed,
in about 1992 or so, the slots were used for memory, but the name had
become inappropriate by the mid 1990's, when they were no longer used
for memory at all and were primarily used for modems, network card, SCSI
adapters and other non-memory devices. This was a name change only,
there was no change made to the cards or to the specs.].

There are two types of cards, 16-bit cards and 32-bit cards. The 32-bit
cards are also sometimes called "cardbus" cards. Roughly, they are the
equivalent of ISA cards and PCI cards, respectively. Most laptops made
since about 1997 have been able to take both types. A 32-bit card
shouldn't physically insert into the slot of a laptop that won't take
them, there is a physical difference in the socket.


Matt Colie wrote:

> Barry,
>
> When did the name change? Or are the PCMCIA cards that I use something
> different than the PCcards that I plug into the existing PCMCIS ports in
> either of my older laptops?
>
> Matt Colie
>
> Barry Watzman wrote:
>
>> First, the correct terminology is "PC Card" not "PCMCIA Card".
>>
>> You can use it, but generally not in DOS unless you have installed a
>> full "card and socket services" package, and possibly device-specific
>> drivers. Getting this properly installed and configured is difficult.
>>
>>
>> (...) wrote:
>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> May i use compact flash card with pcmcia adapter on omnibook 300? Is
>>> it work in DOS without drivers like a hard disk?
>>>
>>> bye
>
>

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

( before e-mailing, remove "NOSPAM" from address )

I don't know what the purpose of the original poster is but in case he
wants to use a compactflash card for downloading images from a digital
camera into the laptop's HD, then I strongly suggest to look at models
listed at this site: dpreview.com

A simple PC Card Compactflash adapter can be bought cheap but it's
usually slow, to little or no advantage over connecting the camera to
the laptop. I think most are 16-bit cards.
There are very fast "Cardbus" models (by Belkin or Delkin, not sure),
which are reportedly faster than firewire alternatives.

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

visitor2NOSPAM@terra.com.br wrote:
> ( before e-mailing, remove "NOSPAM" from address )
>
> I don't know what the purpose of the original poster is but in case he
> wants to use a compactflash card for downloading images from a digital
> camera into the laptop's HD, then I strongly suggest to look at models
> listed at this site: dpreview.com
>
> A simple PC Card Compactflash adapter can be bought cheap but it's
> usually slow, to little or no advantage over connecting the camera to
> the laptop. I think most are 16-bit cards.
> There are very fast "Cardbus" models (by Belkin or Delkin, not sure),
> which are reportedly faster than firewire alternatives.

Your experience differs from mine. Most CompactFlash cards implement an
ATA hardware interface, and the PC Card adapters pass that straight onto
the machine's PCI bus. This is the fastest way to get data on and off a
card. No USB or Firewire approach will get anywhere near as fast.
--
-- Howard Chu
Chief Architect, Symas Corp. Director, Highland Sun
http://www.symas.com http://highlandsun.com/hyc
Symas: Premier OpenSource Development and Support

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

Howard Chu <xyz.hyc@highlandsun.com> wrote in news:nNqdndw4D5mG4P_cRVn-
ig@comcast.com:

> visitor2NOSPAM@terra.com.br wrote:
>> ( before e-mailing, remove "NOSPAM" from address )
>>
>> I don't know what the purpose of the original poster is but in case he
>> wants to use a compactflash card for downloading images from a digital
>> camera into the laptop's HD, then I strongly suggest to look at models
>> listed at this site: dpreview.com
>>
>> A simple PC Card Compactflash adapter can be bought cheap but it's
>> usually slow, to little or no advantage over connecting the camera to
>> the laptop. I think most are 16-bit cards.
>> There are very fast "Cardbus" models (by Belkin or Delkin, not sure),
>> which are reportedly faster than firewire alternatives.
>
> Your experience differs from mine. Most CompactFlash cards implement an
> ATA hardware interface, and the PC Card adapters pass that straight
onto
> the machine's PCI bus. This is the fastest way to get data on and off a
> card. No USB or Firewire approach will get anywhere near as fast.

16-bit PC Cards indeed serve as direct connector between FlashCard and
PCMCIA interface. But they are 16-bit and speed limit is ATA33. 32-bit
PC Cards (Cardbus) map directly to PCI (which itself is 32-bit) and allow
for much higher speeds. But these have nothing to do with ATA directly.
You mixed these two mapping into one straight-through by mistake, I
assume.

Alexei

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

"Howard Chu" <xyz.hyc@highlandsun.com> wrote in message
news:nNqdndw4D5mG4P_cRVn-ig@comcast.com...
> visitor2NOSPAM@terra.com.br wrote:
> > ( before e-mailing, remove "NOSPAM" from address )
> >
> > I don't know what the purpose of the original poster is but in case he
> > wants to use a compactflash card for downloading images from a digital
> > camera into the laptop's HD, then I strongly suggest to look at models
> > listed at this site: dpreview.com
> >
> > A simple PC Card Compactflash adapter can be bought cheap but it's
> > usually slow, to little or no advantage over connecting the camera to
> > the laptop. I think most are 16-bit cards.
> > There are very fast "Cardbus" models (by Belkin or Delkin, not sure),
> > which are reportedly faster than firewire alternatives.
>
> Your experience differs from mine. Most CompactFlash cards implement an
> ATA hardware interface, and the PC Card adapters pass that straight onto
> the machine's PCI bus. This is the fastest way to get data on and off a
> card. No USB or Firewire approach will get anywhere near as fast.

Notebook PCs all use a Cardbus controller on the PCI bus, the cardbus slot
is not directly connected to the PCI bus, indeed this would not be possible,
as the bus structure is completely different, both elecrically and
architecturally. Most of the Cardbus controllers are from TI, i.e. TI
PCI1220.

You may be confusing the Cardbus slot, with the internal mini-PCI slot.

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

"Steven M. Scharf" <scharf.steven@linkearth.net> wrote in
newsPz8d.3445$M05.485@newsread3.news.pas.earthlink.net:

> "Howard Chu" <xyz.hyc@highlandsun.com> wrote in message
> news:nNqdndw4D5mG4P_cRVn-ig@comcast.com...
>> visitor2NOSPAM@terra.com.br wrote:
>> > ( before e-mailing, remove "NOSPAM" from address )
>> >
>> > I don't know what the purpose of the original poster is but in case
>> > he wants to use a compactflash card for downloading images from a
>> > digital camera into the laptop's HD, then I strongly suggest to
>> > look at models listed at this site: dpreview.com
>> >
>> > A simple PC Card Compactflash adapter can be bought cheap but it's
>> > usually slow, to little or no advantage over connecting the camera
>> > to the laptop. I think most are 16-bit cards.
>> > There are very fast "Cardbus" models (by Belkin or Delkin, not
>> > sure), which are reportedly faster than firewire alternatives.
>>
>> Your experience differs from mine. Most CompactFlash cards implement
>> an ATA hardware interface, and the PC Card adapters pass that
>> straight onto the machine's PCI bus. This is the fastest way to get
>> data on and off a card. No USB or Firewire approach will get anywhere
>> near as fast.
>
> Notebook PCs all use a Cardbus controller on the PCI bus, the cardbus
> slot is not directly connected to the PCI bus, indeed this would not
> be possible, as the bus structure is completely different, both
> elecrically and architecturally. Most of the Cardbus controllers are
> from TI, i.e. TI PCI1220.
>
> You may be confusing the Cardbus slot, with the internal mini-PCI
> slot.

Well, you are correct that Cardbus cards do not connect directly to PCI
per se. But architecturally cardbus is "hot-pluggable mini-PCI" in
nature. Cardbus cards live in PCI address space and are seen as PCI
devices. Cardbus controller is a bridge similar to PCI-to-PCI bridges.
What sets cardbus apart is power management implementation and buffers to
provide hot-plug functionality. Well, add ZoomedVideo to that.
Everything else - interrupts, voltage, DMA, card configuration registers
- follows PCI standards, albeit with small quirks here and there to
encourage a cardbus specific design instead of pure reuse of existing PCI
chips

And the statement about most controllers being TI is not true. Cirrus,
O2 Micro, and Ricoh (just to name a few) are well known for their PC Card
host controllers. In fact, I would think Ricoh dominated in laptop
designs at one point. Toshiba is also known for PC Card controllers,
especially their compatibility issues.

Alexei

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

What I was trying to say (regarding transferring digicam images) is
probably better explained by this paragraph quoted from a dpreview.com
article:

"Anyone who has used a standard PCMCIA adapter will know how slow
these devices are, in our tests the new CardBus CF adapter from Delkin
was almost four times faster than a standard PCMCIA adapter."

Full article here:
http://tinyurl.com/tih1

It's been almost a year since that, and yet I haven't heard of
similar specs in any card adapter other than Delkin's.

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

visitor2@zaz.com.br wrote in message news:<f2a3834.0410052143.610d69fc@posting.google.com>...
> What I was trying to say (regarding transferring digicam images) is
> probably better explained by this paragraph quoted from a dpreview.com
> article:
>
> "Anyone who has used a standard PCMCIA adapter will know how slow
> these devices are, in our tests the new CardBus CF adapter from Delkin
> was almost four times faster than a standard PCMCIA adapter."
>
> Full article here:
> http://tinyurl.com/tih1
>
> It's been almost a year since that, and yet I haven't heard of
> similar specs in any card adapter other than Delkin's.

And it looks like Delkin has discontinued it. They are sold out, with
no information on when or if they will have more. One reseller states:

" Back Order
[ ETA: Dec 31, 2009 ] (Estimated)
(Order now to get priority fulfillment when product becomes
available)"

B&H still has it though.

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

visitor2@zaz.com.br writes:
> "Anyone who has used a standard PCMCIA adapter will know how slow
> these devices are, in our tests the new CardBus CF adapter from Delkin
> was almost four times faster than a standard PCMCIA adapter."
>
> Full article here:
> http://tinyurl.com/tih1
>
> It's been almost a year since that, and yet I haven't heard of
> similar specs in any card adapter other than Delkin's.

Interesting. I thought that CF cards were inherently PCMCIA and didn't
support Cardbus. Anyway, looks like Lexar has a similar adapter:

http://www.adorama.com/ILXCBACF32.html

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

Paul Rubin <http://phr.cx@NOSPAM.invalid> wrote :

> Interesting. I thought that CF cards were inherently PCMCIA and didn't
> support Cardbus. Anyway, looks like Lexar has a similar adapter:
> http://www.adorama.com/ILXCBACF32.html

Looks good, and Lexar is a brand that should stick around, they sell
lots of cards.

An important point noted in the above site is about the actual benefit
of such card.
CF cards use built-in controllers, and that dictates the maximum speed
for transfers.
So a Cardbus adapter will allow much faster transfers than a PCMCIA
adapter as long as the card itself is fast enough to make use of the
wider bandwidth, certainly the case with the Sandisk Ultra II cards.
With a regular "non-Ultra II", and "non-Ultra" card the difference
might go unnoticed.
From my experience using a digicam, I think a fast card such as the
Ultra II would certainly justify a cardbus adapter, especially since
the great majority of consumer cameras use the usb 1.1 conection and
are slow to transfer bulks of images.
Of course, a firewire or usb 2.0 card reader would do a good job as
well.
And again, if the camera isn't of the latest generation, buying a
high-speed CF card would only make a difference when using such a fast
card reader or adapter, since not latest cameras like my G3 won't use
the extra speed.

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

visitor2@zaz.com.br wrote:
> Paul Rubin <http://phr.cx@NOSPAM.invalid> wrote :
>
>
>>Interesting. I thought that CF cards were inherently PCMCIA and didn't
>>support Cardbus. Anyway, looks like Lexar has a similar adapter:
>>http://www.adorama.com/ILXCBACF32.html

The description of the Lexar sounds exactly like the description of the
Delkin. I think both companies are buying them from the same source in
Taiwan. Also, FWIW, the Delkin supports type II CF cards as well as type
I. The very large capacity CF cards are often type II.