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ExpressCards, the new PCMCIA? 153

Posted by CmdrTaco from the certainly-easier-to-say dept.
randallpowell writes "PC Cards will face competition from ExpressCards in 2005 and 2006. Newer notebook PCs will have them to add wireless, HD-TV broadcast viewing, back-up storage, and more. Microsoft, Dell, and Intel are the major backers of this new expansion slot technology. While smaller, they can easily help users expand their notebook's abilities while PC Cards slowly phase out."
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ExpressCards, the new PCMCIA? More

ExpressCards, the new PCMCIA?

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  • But I already have an express card (Score:4, Funny)

    by Timesprout ( 579035 ) on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @10:32AM (#11320945)
    In fact I never leave home without it but it fuxored my laptop when I inserted it.

  • I don't get it (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dsginter ( 104154 ) on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @10:33AM (#11320952)
    Is the goal of everything to eventually become a choking hazzard? What was wrong with the old PCMCIA infrastructure? Why not just add some additional bandwidth and be done with it?

    What we need is a good upgradeable PCI standard for desktops so that people can slide their cards in without opening the case. *That* would be innovative...
    • The standard PC slot cards are expensive enough as it is, I wonder why try to shrink it even more. There aren't a whole lot of TV tuners, much less HD tuners for PCMCIA, I wonder what about Express card will make those more available. HDTV doesn't need slot bandwidth unless maybe if it is decoded on-card, the broadcast bitstream is only 20Mbps.

      Maybe I'll be interested if they actually bother to put more than two slots on laptops. It's bad enough that so many laptops seem to have only one mini-pci slot a

    • Re:I don't get it (Score:4, Informative)

      by Figaro ( 20471 ) <doug.geekzero@net> on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @10:48AM (#11321091) Homepage
      I know this is unrealistic, but if you'd read the article you would have found out that this is an extension of PCI Express and PC manufacturers would like to extend this to Desktop PC's.
      • I know this is unrealistic, but if you'd read the article you would have found out that this is an extension of PCI Express and PC manufacturers would like to extend this to Desktop PC's.

        They're gonna put a video card on this solution? My point was that PCMCIA didn't need to be any smaller in order to be adapted to PCI-Express. By making this new format so small, they've pigeon-holed themselves into all but the smallest niches.

        10:1 that you won't see this on the mainstream desktop for this very reason.
    • If they gave a link somewhere useful you may know:

      "All ExpressCard slots will accommodate modules designed to use either Universal Serial Bus (USB*) 2.0, or the emerging PCI*Express standards."

      Q.

      • link [expresscard.org]
        I swear I meant to preview...
        Q.
      • Using USB 2.0 or firewire seems like the way to go for most things you stick on a notebook using a pcmcia card. The the common uses I can think of are.
        Memory cards
        Modems
        network adapters
        WiFi
        and the data aqusistion cards.
        Okay add in TV tuners maybe.
        USB 2.0 and Firewife can handle all these with no problem. An internal slot with a firewire or usb 2.0 connection would work just fine.
    • Is the goal of everything to eventually become a choking hazzard?

      I've yet to choke on the xD card for my camera, but then again, I don't put them in my mouth either.

    • The problem with PCMCIA was the name:
      "People Can't Memorize Computer Industy Acronyms".

      It was kinda rude..
    • Is the goal of everything to eventually become a choking hazzard?

      What you call a 'choking hazard' the manufacturer calls 'uses less materials and is therefore cheaper to produce and thus less expensive for the consumer'.

      • Re:I don't get it (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Desert Raven ( 52125 )
        What you call a 'choking hazard' the manufacturer calls 'uses less materials and is therefore cheaper to produce and thus less expensive for the consumer'.

        Materials costs usually represent the smallest part of the cost of making an item, especially in anything as small as a card. In fact, smaller form factors can increase production costs, due to the greater precision needed to make it.

        What the manufacturer really calls it is: 'inventing another incompatible form-factor so people can't use their old kit,
        • Materials costs usually represent the smallest part of the cost of making an item, especially in anything as small as a card

          You're mistaking small costs for immaterial costs; Recall Rambus memory. It's big appeal to manufacturers was lower pin count. Saving even just one dollar on materials when the automated assembly line churns out a million units at a time adds up to a million dollars in savings. Since the new card format is not only smaller but also has less pins, there will be several dollars per
    • One of the neat things about the old dinosaur Sun hardware was that to add a card you just slid the new card into the chassis without opening anything up. Back then all the cards were super expensive and all the same size. Now, everything is different sizes, and some of the cards stick out further from the slot in all directions.

      Instead, I imagine something more modular that looks like a brick or cassette tape with airflow holes wherever possible, taking up 1 or two slots, slides into the back of the PC
  • With so much stuff being plugged in via USB that used to go into PCMCIA card slots, is another card slot technology like this really needed?
    • I agree, USB can do everything and my 1gb memory stick will suffice thank you. My laptop has a pcmcia slot and I never used it. If I find out it doesn't work it wouldn't hurt me. This is an effort to be a big media hype making laptop users think they need some "new innovative technology". Let me hook up my USB printer, and my USB mouse. Is there something that I can't do with USB!?!?!

    • Re:USB? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by jellomizer ( 103300 ) * on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @10:44AM (#11321050)
      Yes just because carrying a lot of additional USB equipment and cables get bothersome. The problem with PCMCIA cards is the fact that laptops are getting thinner and thiner and a laptop that has enough space to hold 2 PCMCIA cards are considered bulky monsters. Besides these cards are used for high bandwidth stuff. But the point of all cards is for them to be outdated and get embedded in the motherboard at some point. remember the PCMCIA eathernet cards with those dongles that break every 5 minutes?
      • Bulky monsters? It doesn't take much thickness to have two PCMCIA slots. Looking at my laptop (IBM T40), the total thickness of the two slots is still thinner than the space required for an ethernet jack. The only laptops that I've seen that are noticeably thinner are ones that don't have optical disc drives or ethernet ports (use wireless or some sort of external connector).
    • I was thinking the same thing..

      Maybe part of it is that people dont want various devices hanging outside their notebook.. Something that slides in, keeps the case smooth, sleek, simple..

      Maybe what they reallly need is an insertable USB standard.. Basicly a recessed USB port, with a standard slot.. Then you could have all these slide in USB devices, fully compat with any USB computer.. Any non-slotable device could use inserts that would just make the port be along the edge of the machine (or just use the

      • Re:USB? (Score:2)

        by swb ( 14022 )
        Insertable USB solves the form-factor problem, but what about the bandwidth problem?

      • "Slashdot is like Playboy: I read it for the articles"

        This analogy implies that the real reason you read Slashdot is for the pictures..... and here, that means a proliferation of linked goatse and tubgirl. Ugh!

      • I've been walking around with that idea for a while. Great for those wifi, BT and mouse dongles. And all the industry needs to do is think of a standard form factor.

        That bandwidth problem will be solved with USB 3.0 and 4.0...

        X.
        • "I've been walking around with that idea for a while. Great for those wifi, BT and mouse dongles. And all the industry needs to do is think of a standard form factor."

          That is not a bad idea anyway. It would take some bulk out of those needlessly blobby thumb-drives.

    • well, at the very least you would need a standard dongle size for usb.

      you know, unless you want sticks sticking out of your laptop.
    • I agree. We need more USB slots and maybe one or two Firewire slots. I've never used the PCMCIA slot on my laptop, and unfortunately it only came with 2 USB slots, which I use both of almost always (swapping is quite a hassle). I wish they'd forget about the PCMCIA slot and maybe added 2-3 more USB ports.

      Of course, those who have their wireless card connect via PCMCIA might not agree, but I've integrated wireless.

      - shazow

      • Re:Agreed (Score:3, Insightful)

        by magarity ( 164372 )
        2 USB slots, which I use both of almost always (swapping is quite a hassle)

        Rejoice, for I bring good tidings; There is a device called a 'USB Hub' that allows branching off of a single port. Since you're already dragging around multiple USB devices that you need to swap back and forth, another one won't be that big of a deal especially given the tiny sizes some of the hubs come in. Oh, and the PCMCIA slot you wish was replaced by '1 or 2' extra USB ports? You can get 2 or even 4 port USB PCCards if yo

      • Re:Agreed (Score:3, Insightful)

        by NoMoreNicksLeft ( 516230 )
        Several problems. Not everyone is you... I use PCMCIA for gps, for a smartcard reader I play with, and for a few weird network cards when I'm playing around (token ring and arcnet... can't find the localtalk one). I'd even like to find a PCMCIA tv tuner someday...

        And USB isn't a replacement. For one, it demands 500mA of power, per USB. Most laptops can't promise that, beyond 1-2, or at most, 3 usb ports. And then there is the entire bandwidth thing... USB was truly meant to be for pointers and keyboards, a

  • well... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by JawzX ( 3756 )
    Sounds like PC card only smaller. Killer app aside, this could alow smaller laptops/palmtops to accept the kind of expansion devices we've come to expect from PC cards. I mean sure, many devices are comming through with built-in firewire/usb/networking, but this could reduce initial cost as well as size, or imagine a laptop with 4 expansion slots... It's all good. I'm excited to see what comes of it.

    Now if only someone could build an AGP device thats PC card size or smaller... get me a radeon x800 for my (
    • That's not totally a ridiculous idea. The ExpressCard is based on PCI-Express x1 - so the bandwidth is pretty sweet [arstechnica.com]. It's not going to reach full 8x AGP but it will blow the socks off of a PCI video card. We're talking PCI (132MB/s) versus PCIe (~310MB/s).
    • >> Now if only someone could build an AGP device thats PC card size or smaller... get me a radeon x800 for my (imaginary) Powerbook G5.

      AGP is completely obsolete, even at ~2.1 GB/s at 8x. PCI Express is ~310 MB/s _per lane_. With a PCIe x16, PCI Express hits 4 GB/s, easily beating AGP's best rate.

      So, yes, PCIe x1 is effectively replacing PCMCIA in the ExpressCard format. But don't ask for someone to invent anything new for AGP - instead ask for a x16 ExpressCard format large enough for video card
      • The correct question would be one for a cooling system for that card. Transfer speed is irrelevant if the card melts during the boot process.
  • I like USB 2 external devices over internal PCI cards, like my 802.11g thumbdrive. The only drawback is that USB thumbdrives stick out in an ungainly manner so they suck for long-term deployment.

    This new thing sounds like it will work like USB2 except it will reside in a small chassis like PCMCIA. Just what I need.

  • ExpressCards picture (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Picture here [zdnet.com.au].
  • Going by the lack of Linux support for other such technologies (mini-PCI wifi on laptops), I have to wonder: is Intel going to release OSS drivers for these cards? Or are Linux users doomed to play catchup, forced to use Windows DLLs (like LinuxAnt) to get the hardware working?

    Seeing that Intel is involved, I'm not too sure if they'll release the drivers anytime soon. But I guess we can wait and see.

    --
    Clicking on this link [yahoo.com] [yahoo.com] will cost Ken Lay of Enron $0.10. Don't believe me? Try it out. :-)

    • Re:Linux drivers? (Score:3, Informative)

      by bersl2 ( 689221 )
      Going by the lack of Linux support for other such technologies (mini-PCI wifi on laptops)

      Huh? What are you talking about? If a driver supports the Cardbus version, it supports the mini-PCI version.
    • Intel has drivers for their http://ipw2100.sf.net and http://ipw2200.sf.net mini-PCI wifi cards...

    • Going by the lack of Linux support for other such technologies (mini-PCI wifi on laptops), I have to wonder: is Intel going to release OSS drivers for these cards?

      The sticking point isn't the mini-pci; Linux deals with that just fine. The sticking point is the chipset on the card itself, and how well the vendor does (or does not) support Linux or driver development for it.

      To help remedy the situation, only buy cards that support Linux, or which let Linux support them. For additional mileage, send phy

  • Does it draw less power?
    Does it generate less heat?
    Will open source drivers be made available?
    Should anyone care?
    • The millions of business and game users for whom the technology is targetted at will care.

      The three guys with Linux laptops might not.
      • As someone who uses a linux laptop at work, I care.

        I think the other two probably do too...

        • My laptop is linux only too, so I guess I have to thank either you or the other guy for writing all the drivers that make it work flawlessly.

          • Mine too (and no, I didn't write any linux drivers (yet)).

            The way I see it you have a laptop either because you are high enough in the company to get them to buy one even though you don't need one or you have some mobile work to do on it which can be done on linux just as good as (or better than) on windows. As I student who uses a laptop for 2+ years now I have yet to find something that is more work in linux than in windows, especially with the relative to a desktop slow mouse (without an external one)

  • Is this needed? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by macbrak ( 101794 )
    This just seems really useless to me.

    While cards are nice and compact, USB/Firewire are fast enough now to be able to do anything that pc. Granted they're good for adding things like wireless to old computers but I don't think the cardbus will be the bottleneck for sometime, so why get rid of the old standard.

    Why don't they just try to make USB 3.0 the end all be all of interfaces and have 1 type of port.

    Maybe this is more of a pc problem. I just finally used my card slot on my powerbook (for wireless) l

  • But we only recently got stable Cardbus support in Linux!

    Seriously, using Linux has been good for my wallet. Not only do I save on software costs, I also reduce my spending on hardware because a lot of the more exotic gadgets aren't well supported.

  • I hope they use dongles! (Score:5, Funny)

    by potus98 ( 741836 ) on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @10:43AM (#11321044) Journal

    Oooooh ooooh! I hope the figure out a way to use easy-to-break and impossible-to-find vendor-proprietary dongles for all my connections! That would be awesome!

    • Re:I hope they use dongles! (Score:4, Interesting)

      by dasunt ( 249686 ) on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @12:44PM (#11322762)

      I don't see why they couldn't have the new standard be twice the height of the current PCMCIA cards, but only half the width.

      That's large enough for one of the following, flush with the end of the card:

      • RJ-45 jack
      • RJ-11 jack
      • 2 USB ports
      • Firewire port
      • 3 mini-audio jacks

      Under this scheme, dongles wouldn't be needed for the most common cards. There would be no protruding connection so that the laptop would fit without any problems in its carrying case. 2 slot machines could be arranged side to side, allowing "double-width" cards to be used for more room.

  • Because we all know that VisaCards are accepted more places than ExpressCards.
  • So now we just cut our battery life down to 10 minutes, but who cares as long as I can frag the weak in those 10 minutes...

    But honestly is this extra power really going to make things better? Is it necessary?

  • "Designed to be the standard add-on cards for the next 10 years..." That's a relief... my zip disk drive is on its last leg! :-p Is 10 years a realistic time frame for "new standards" anymore?
  • See, this is how they get you to buy new hardware, with the DRM stuff built in.. ( and then later new softare as there wont be drivers for the latest new fangled devices for older OS's )

    And you people roll over and accept it.
  • I don't see terribly much upside for users on this one. It looks to be a cost saving effort by the manufacturers. Not that TFA had any technical content.

    On the upside it might be slightly smaller to carry around and laptops are pretty special purpose devices. I doubt it will be much of an inconvenience to purchase new modules in this form, as most of the computers come with everything you might've had an old PCMCIA card for anyway.

    Another thought. Why not simply use Compact Flash type 2? Allthough th
  • PCMCIA is the name of the group name the standard.
    The current PC Cards is a standard from the PCMCIA group. ExpressCard is the new standard from the PCMCIA special interest group.

    So PCMCIA is not going away.
    I could make some comments about people not understanding computers, but will not.
  • Old PC's that need additions have PCMCIA.

    New Laptops have everything you could ever want on the mobo.

    Na I think this one should die horribly.

  • Comparison Images (Score:2, Informative)

    by Ahotasu ( 206241 )

    The article is kinda skimpy on details for those of us who are visual-type people, so here is a link to an image [elecdesign.com] comparing a PCMCIA card to the two ExpressCard forms.

    Enjoy!

  • Photos and more info (Score:5, Informative)

    by waynegoode ( 758645 ) * on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @10:53AM (#11321141) Homepage
    For photos [expresscard.org] and more info see PCMCIA's official site for ExpressCard [expresscard.org].

  • This isn't PCMCIA! (Score:5, Informative)

    by technos ( 73414 ) on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @10:55AM (#11321173) Homepage Journal
    This isn't PCMCIA-like at all. This is not a new bus. This is just a new standardization for how to connect to the existing PCI-E/USB busses, and a standard on card size! Think of it like hot-swap PCI for laptops.

    Say you make a ExpressCard 56K modem. It will appear to the system as a USB device. All the card is doing is using the four pins of the slot that connect to the USB controller. The manufacturer will probably reuse 99% of the code from the USB version.

    Say you make a ExpressCard video adaptor. Well, here it uses the couple dozen pins in the slot that connect more or less directly to the PCI-E bus. The manufacturer will probably reuse 95% of the code from the PCI-E version of the adaptor.

    Beyond support for hot swap, the Linux kernel folks will have to make few changes.
    • Why can the manufacturer reuse 99% of the code for a modem and 95% for the video adapter? I was thinking more along the lines of 98% and 94%, respectively, but am willing to hear out your point of view.
      • Now now.. There will be no negotiation of my carefully researched figures! They are 99.42% accurate, and no other figures, studies, or estimations are correct!

        None!

        Do you hear me?!

        Sorry, didn't mean to channel Gartner there.
    • Well, cardbus was exactly like hot-swap pci for laptops too, so the only real difference is the addition of a USB bus.

      And yes, the drivers of a cardbus card and a compact-pci or pci card are almost identical.

  • Down the road, ExpressCard backers including Microsoft Corp. (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) , Intel Corp. (INTC.O: Quote, Profile, Research) and Dell Inc. (DELL.O: Quote, Profile, Research) , envision the technology moving to desktop PCs, eliminating the need to pop open computer cases to install hardware upgrades.
    Why is it when i hear M$ , Intel and Dell getting together behind something that I get the funny feeling that i need to go find my tinfoil hat
  • All these different expansion slots are patched into different buses, sometimes with lots of crossover. With weight, power, CPU bandwidth and expense all at a premium, when will notebooks ship with a big FPGA at the core? The BIOS could configure it at boot to interconnect the actual connected devices, cached for reboot and reconfigured on device dis/reconnect. It would be as common as the DSP in integrated sound and video cards. Then we could code the FPGA/DSPs combo for our own devices, a tight little DS
  • I'd love to be able to use my laptop as a monitor for either analog or VGA-type video signals. Does anyone make a laptop that allows you to input video to the LCD display? I know there are analog input solutions via USB or Firewire, but nothing that lets me use the LCD display as a display independent of the CPU.
    • Of course not. Why would you think a new connector that is basically does a superset of cardbus and USB would be capable of what the two of them aren't? How do you think this would work? Would it magically worm it's way into the connection between your LCD and the motherboard to handle I/O?

      Making extra hardware in the LCD to convert NTSC or PAL into something it can understand would mean adding a processor to the LCD itself, which means the screen would be thicker and more cumbersome. Further, you don'
      • Alright, simmer down.

        I didn't think that this inteface really had anything to do with this.

        But it gave me the chance to ask on a low-traffic /. article related to laptops about my favorite missing feature, the ability to use the laptop display as a monitor. And while we're at it, why not the ability to use a laptop's hardware as an entire KVM?

        Where I think it would be truly useful is in a rack situation where a generic PC would be handy and where you'd waste space with a traditional KVM solution. Racki
      • I'll do it! -- Homer Simpson
    • A while ago, a company called iRez made a PCMCIA card (can't remember if it was Cardbus or not - and I would guess not) that would input video from the S-video or RCA port on the card, and use a feature of the slot called "zoomed video" that would let it transfer the video off the card to the screen with very low load. You would still need software to access the card and view the video, but a few years ago (when this card was available), viewing video with it (even at full screen) still left a very respons
  • Does this mean that there will be Yet Another Standard to support? It looks like USB already does everything that is needed. Couldn't they just make a slot with a USB connector at the end or something?

  • In the 1990s, before modems and ethernet network adapters were integrated inside of laptops, corporate users purchased PC cards in droves for those applications. This time around, non-business applications, like add-on memory cards and TV tuners, are expected to lead the way.

    I bought (and saw get bought) a lot of modem and ethernet PC cards in the 90s. Some more were purchased in early 00s to support wireless networks. Modems and NICs were a definite killer app.

    However I, like others, already have an i

    • I have to admit that if there's one thing that I absolutely don't want on my laptop, it's TV, HD or not.

      There's enough crap available on the Web and Usenet without adding TV to the mix.

      Yuck.

  • But will it be a PCI killer? (Score:5, Informative)

    by strredwolf ( 532 ) on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @11:20AM (#11321453) Homepage Journal
    Wait... we have a 10 Mhz 16-bit PC Card Services bus, a faster, 32 bit CardBus, and what's this now?

    Let's pull the white paper.

    First, it's 1 PCI Express lane (2.5 Gigabit) plus USB 2.0 (480+ Mbit) in about 20 pins. USB already is installed on laptops -- this is just another form factor for it. I'll ignore it and concentrate on PCI Express.

    Now what are we using that requires that much bandwidth? All together now: Uncompressed video and Gigabit Ethernet.

    I think we'll have alot of high-end laptops in 2005 have this, the ones who need to muck with video on the go.

    A side note: Currently mainstream PCI is a 32-bit bus at 33 Mhz (Although we can double the size and the speed, it's allowed in the spec). That's about 132 Megabytes per sec, or 1.056 Gigabit. Five channel, 48Hz 16-bit audio is about 480 Kbyte/s. 1 Gigabit Ethernet would flood a PCI bus -- but current speeds comming out of Cable, DSL, and Fiber To the House are sub-10baseT speeds.

    • Now what are we using that requires that much bandwidth? All together now: Uncompressed video and Gigabit Ethernet.

      Networking on laptops are no longer done with PCMCIA... first ethernet, and now wireless, are usually delivered built in. Many laptops come with GbE too.

      As for GbE filling the bus... chipsets often handle these outside the PCI bus [intel.com]. And servers use PCI-X (or now, PCI Express).

  • Ugly (Score:3, Interesting)

    by erroneus ( 253617 ) on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @11:29AM (#11321542) Homepage
    Okay it's a little smaller than PCMCIA and probably a lot faster or whatever. Natural evolution? Yeah, I guess so.

    But I looked at a web site showing a PC/Workstation with a card slot in front and apparantly there are two sizes of slots... the smaller cards are still compatible with the larger slot but it doesn't look nice at all... not to me anyway. I'm getting there would be an easy way to make it look more slick but the picture didn't appeal to me.

    Changing formats always has a pain component. Moving away from floppies wasn't all that painful but it has been very long and drawn out and even now, I am still using them for small things like ghost boots and stuff like that. I hope it's worthwhile but I can't help but wonder why they didn't make it somehow work in the PCMCIA format? They could call it PCMCIA2 or something. I guess there are reasons that I'll never hear for all of that.

    Linux support is an assumption I make right now... I assume it will happen rapidly. People choked when USB started to catch on and I've never had problems with PCMCIA with Linux but then again, it was only within the past two years that I started using Linux on a laptop anyway. But with some of the players out there now (Intel) I think Linux support will be a given. Intel would be stupid to let Microsoft influence them against Linux at this point since Microsoft isn't supporting their 64bit processors particularly well.

  • Not New at All... (Score:2, Informative)

    by loyukfai ( 837795 )

    Besides the confusion you see here [slashdot.org], one may note that ExpressCard, besides the name, is not new at all. It was originaly named "NEWCARD" and announced 2 years ago.

    FYI, you can find more about its history here [internet.com], here [extremetech.com], and here [pcmcia.org].

  • Viewing HDTV is kind of a bad example for this. HDTV is received as a 20Mbps MPEG2 stream. This can easily be passed through a cardbus slot, and probably through an old standard PCMCIA slot.

    The only time it becomes bandwidth intensive is after the MPEG2 is decoded on the CPU, you need good AGP bus bandwidth to send the 1920x1080i video to the display.
  • Yes, its faster. But I think the primary reason they are doing this is not because we all want or need that kind of speed, but because it simply allows them to build simpler machines. Since its just a form factor for PCI-Express+USB, that means less circuitry.

    Its also great for marketing.

  • Yet Another Non-Free Standard (Score:3, Informative)

    by FrankDrebin ( 238464 ) on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @12:52PM (#11322884) Homepage

    The PCMCIA folks, who are behind this ExpressCard thing, want $349 USD for a copy of the standard [pcmcia.org], and it is only available in electronic form [expresscard.org].

    I can understand a small printing fee for a dead-tree copy. But sheesh, when will these guys follow the lead of the IEEE on the 802. standards [ieee.org] and just open them up?

  • Um, but why? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by gillbates ( 106458 ) on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @01:29PM (#11323366) Homepage Journal
    The cards will generally add little to existing PC cards, Saunders said, but that's necessary to help ease the transition from CardBus, the current slot technology. The two are not compatible.[emphasis mine]

    So, I'm expected to just upgrade for the joy of hardware troubleshooting?! Problem is, there is no compelling reason to break backward compatibility in this case - no new features, and the speed of existing cards generally isn't an issue.

    That compatibility is expected to give ExpressCard a boost over prior PC cards in ease of installation and configuration with the Windows operating system...

    Yeah, right. First of all, I'm no Windows fan, but it seems to me that PCMCIA was one of the few things that Windows did get right. If you had drivers for the device, Windows loaded them without hassle whenever you inserted the card. How much easier could it get?

    Heck, even Linux works well with PCMCIA devices - to be honest, I don't even know which drivers my PCMCIA ethernet card uses because I've never had to figure it out. I just plug the card in, and it works.

    Looks to me like a real flop. If you're going to break backward compatibility, you have to offer your customers a compelling reason to buy your product, i.e. better performance, new features, etc... I did RTFA, and it seems like the new Express architecture is little more than an excuse to keep engineers and programmers employed.

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