It was fun being able to expand your computer's IO capabilities by adding on a network card, modem, USB, FireWire, etc. with these modules. It's similar to Framework's little USB-C-based modules, though those modules are just too small for a lot of circuits without a very creative design.
PCMCIA and PC Card = ISA
CardBus = PCI and ISA - slot was backwards compatible so you could use a PC Card in a CardBus slot
ExpressCard = PCIe
>So we know these were originally called PCMCIA cards, then later PC Cards, right? Well, I think I might have found the first mention of PCMCIA in PC Magazine. It is in a Dec 1991 column by Dvorak where he "introduces" the "PCMCIA PC-Card". Here's a quote, "In fact, the card should be referred to as the PCMCIA PC-Card, or the PC-Card for short. PCMCIA is the Personal Computer Computer Memory Card International Association (Sunnyvale, Calif., 408-720-0107), and it's the governing body that has standardized the specifications for this card worldwide. JEIDA works with the PCMCIA; it's specifications are identical."
>So at least according this Dvorak column, these were ALWAYS properly called "PC-Cards" (he used a hyphen), but early on people definitely were calling them PCMCIA cards and I remember the shift to everyone later (much later than this 1991 column) calling them PC Cards.
It definitely seems to reinforce the joke backronym of "People Can't Memorize Computer Industry Acronyms" for the whole thing given how badly it was all refered to. It's a lot like the whole Clippit/Clippy situation with the Microsoft Office assistants. Originally it was only named Clippit but Clippy got coined by everyone else and even Microsoft ended up giving in and using it in marketing materials not too long after the fact.
(Or possibly s/computer/complicated/, that's how I remembered it at least.)
Now that Raspberry Pi has entered the market, hobbyists that were only familiar with SBCs are now being introduced to the flexibility of Low-power RISC microcontrollers and microprocessors.
There's also some new products on the market that are the best of both worlds, with the system-in-package form factors and easy bare-metal development of the RP2XXX line, that still have the ability to run full Linux, like the Bouffalo Labs BL808 and the Sophgo SG2000. Check out the Ox64 from Pine64 (https://pine64.com/product/128mb-ox64-sbc-available-on-decem...) or the Duo series from MilkV (https://milkv.io/duo) for breakout boards and development boards.
I have an old Thinkpad and had a similar idea for wifi, but I was thinking about MiniPCI.
Emulating NE2000 is great :)
Problem with them, for the most part, will be about rebuilding the batteries and dealing with the poor quality of old screens.
obviously this is way over my head, would be great if LLMs can help noobs
geerlingguy•2w ago
[1] https://youtu.be/hF0NKvmQmVA?t=47 (I couldn't find a good picture elsewhere)
Edit - I found this video on his YouTube channel with more info (with the latest version of the card): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-04EoGlayY