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PC-Card ABCs
Specifications
Installation
Troubleshooting

PC CARD ABCs

Trade association founded in 1989 by a group of computer manufacturers, the PCMCIA established the PC card standard, which has greatly expanded the potential capabilities of portable computers. PC cards, also called PCMCIA cards, are credit card sized devices that offer everything from expanded storage space, modems, network cards, and CD-ROM drives.

Being officially renamed in February 1999, today PCMCIA is officially referred to as PC Cards.

16-Bit (PC Card-16) -  The original 16-bit interface version supporting only one interrupt and no support for bus mastering DMA. Capable of supporting 8-bit or 16-bit and a bus speed of 8 MHz, the speed similar to an ISA Bus found on desktop computers.

32-Bit (Card Bus) - Very similar to the PCI Bus found on desktop computers. The Card Bus is only found on computers utilizing the Pentium Processor or equivalent. The Card is a 32-bit bus mastering DMA capable of bus speeds from 20 to 33 MHz and peak transfer rates of 132 Mbytes a second.

Zoomed Video - Technology developed by Toshiba, the Zoomed video port, or ZV Port, allows a direct link from the PC Card bus to the VGA controller allowing for support for an inexpensive solution for full screen video, MPEG decoders, live video, TV tuners as well as other various multimedia solutions.

SPECIFICATIONS

Below is complete hardware specifications of PC-Cards.

All PC-Cards, as illustrated in the above picture, are 85.6 mm deep x 54 mm wide and have a 68-pin connector or two rows of 34 pins.

Type 1 - Card which is 3.3mm thick often used for adding RAM and ROM.
Type 2 - Card which are 5mm thick often used for modems and Network cards.
Type 3 - Card which are 10.5mm thick and are used for adding a portable disk drive or other device.
Type 4 - Developed by Japan Electronics Industry Development Association, or JEIDA, is a non standard PC slot although is found in some laptop computers such as the laptops. The type 4 was rejected as part of the PCMCIA standard, therefore will only be seldom used or seen.

PC-Card slot is generally located on the left or right hand side of your portable computer and will generally have two available locations for cards to be connected.  As you can see in the below picture, the card is going into the laptop horizontally.

When the card is placed in the slot, generally the PC-Card button will pop out. Once the card is within the computer, the software should either make a tone or a message should appear indicating that the card has been detected on the computer. To eject the card, press the PC-Card button which will come out halfway and give you enough working space to pull the card out the remainder of the way.