What Is A:

[MatrixmaN]

PCMCIA Slot: One type II slot, support CardB

It's on my laptop and I want to know what it does or is used for.

[Beemer]

PCMCIA
Personal Computer Memory Card International Association

An organization that defines standards for connecting peripherals to mimaturized computers such as notebooks and laptops. The standard ISA, EISA, PCI and VLB buses are too bulky for laptop computers; the PCMCIA bus (now known as PC Card and CardBus) is the widely accepted standard.

In other words, it's for plugging periferals into your laptop.
Such as PCMCIA modem cards, NIC cards, memory card reader adapters, etc.

Cheers!

[MatrixmaN]

Thanks...

Er.....so can I hook a PCI card from my PC into that slot or do I have to buy a special card for such purposes? Or is the PCMCIA slot like a little version of PC PCI but I'll have to buy extra things to use with or is a converter of sorts from PC to Laptop?

or am I still dense enough to misunderstand...?

[ale_x13]

im pretty sure u can only hook PCMCIA cards into a PCMCIA slot, but i could be wrong

PCMCIA was also designed for it's portability.

Type I cards are the original and only 3.3mm thick.

Type II, the mostly widely used, are 5.0mm thick.

Type III, the bulkiest, are 10.5mm thick.

Type I are mainly used for memory.

Type II are mainly modems, NIC's, etc . . .

Type III are mainly hdd's.

[zen]

Originally posted by MatrixmaN
Thanks...

Er.....so can I hook a PCI card from my PC into that slot or do I have to buy a special card for such purposes?

You have to buy a pcmcia card. Nothing at all like a pci card.
pci=internal
pcmcia=external

[John Prophet]

Nah, cant use pci or anything from a regular comp in it.

basically it is just a laptop standard.

It uses little cards that are about the size of a credit card..like this http://www.compgeeks.com/images/300x...A511R-unit.jpg

They are hot swappable..so you can plug and unplug 'em without rebooting.

As stated there are 3 types according to the thickness. I would imagine most cards are type 2.

You can get all kinds of card for pcmcia slots......modems, nics, hard drives, usb 2 or firewire controllers, etc.

I think the newer name is "cardbus".

Sometimes the cards come with a little cable also, called a "dongle"..usually for modems or nics...in this picture the card is laying on top of the dongle...not a great pic cuz the dongle just snaps into the end of the card http://www.compgeeks.com/images/300x...-CO-U-unit.jpg

JP