Can a HPC running Linux use a card bus pcmcia card?

LOL, tell that to 200LX owners

Yes I mostly agree desktop CPUs ought to be different from those in our little PDAs. But it's not because of viruses... It's mostly for the cost, and also for the power requirements (which also means the heat). I just have a funny imagination of a PDA with a huge HSF sticking out of it's back... That's what a Pentium 4 would do to a PDA

But ok, more realistically, Sony stuffed a Pentium M in the U70, OQO a Transmeta, and the new DualCor thingy got a VIA. So yeah it's true the x86 is already among us... again.

I don't know exactly how it went, but MS seemed to have no idea which CPU architecture would be good for CE (or PDA in general), so they just let the other guys figure it out. HP went with SH3 first, then NEC came with MIPS (and Casio), and finally Compaq chose ARM. (Correct me if I'm wrong, I'm not sure...)

It just so happened that the iPAQ was the first successful CE PDA (in terms of a Palm competitor), and so now we have ARM everywhere (and PPC). Intel would be happy because they had been making their StrongARM for years. However Motorola and Texas Instruments and Samsung proved that they can compete with their own ARM chips

Since Palm went with ARM as well, and most Smartphones would still need the lower power drain, ARM would still be dominant for quite some time. But like I said, relatively larger sized PDAs can easily get an x86, which with the added power and compatibility, might one day take over... again.

Nope, that's all shot to hell because my Casio E200 sled currently contains an Intel 2011b cardbus card that works fine thanks. And I greatly doubt the sled has an x86 chip inside.

And Monica, it wasn't the thickness I was referencing. PCcards have a high ridge key on the front left corner to prevent insertion into a pcmcia slot.

Well, first, that key doesn't always work, as you can insert a CardBus into a j72x too, hehe, just that it wouldn't work. A CardBus usually have a gold-colored strip at the end with studs. (See attachment for example)

Is this your card? It's 16-bit...
http://support.intel.com/support/wireless/wlan/pro2011b/lanpccard/sb/cs-008114.htm

I don't know if you were being sarcastic... But I didn't imply that an x86 CPU is required to support CardBus. I am only saying that is the only CE CPU that can have sorta built-in support for CardBus. It's possible to add CardBus support to any system with a special controller chip, as long as the system can handle the bit rate of course.





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update on wlan "g" in pda's the htc wizard (qtek 9100, mda vario, imate kjam) has g built in you can enable it with a reghack then it can connect to G-only access points though it is not clear to me if the speed can reach 54 mbps (these pda's cant really handle that speed)

actually there was NEC with MIPS and Casio with SH3 first, they were the first manufacturers to bring out CE1 hpc's

SH3 was never a real competitor (its sloow), certain MIPS cpu's are as good as ARM though (not all of them! in my experience there are slooow MIPS cpu's too - or was that another factor? )

Intel never made the strongarm, they bought it from ARM (advanced risc something) and then created Xscale.

just a little additional info: psion pda's started using ARM in 1996 (or 97?). before (or when) CE1 came out first

as takwu also said, i CAN insert a cardbus into the J728... (i tried it - i had a dlink dwl 650 with the golden strip yeah, i sold it along with the subnote)

can you show us a pic of that intel please

Nope, I didn't mean to sound sarcastic. The whole wifi world is anything but consistent, make that the whole hpc/ppc world. It's too bad in one way so many cpu types were used, we're paying that price in available software. OTOH, for a collector the different types are interesting to own and fiddle with.

Ok, I'll dig out my camera and try to get a decent shot of the 2011b to post.







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according to the pic it is certainly not a cardbus i can see you took the picture of the correct half of the card (as the labels can be seen) as the golden strip is usually on that side. but you can take another of the other half (upside down) to finally determine it (you see takwu's pic? and the golden strip on it near the end?)

oh the complicated wifi world is amazing, i like exploring the chipsets and drivers the most interesting is that not all prism drivers are created equal! not even the same driver with a different cpu...

Edited by cmonex 2006-01-24 10:25 PM

Yea, but notice the label. PC Card as bold as can be. And the pccard key like I mentioned.

I can't find it now but I stumbled on a comparison chart and 2011 =16bit , 2011b =32bit

But I'm going to download the 2011 ce drivers and try them on my 2011b.

Now, this business about a pccard fitting into a 72x. Is the 72x properly keyed to take a pccard or this is a hammer and bang fit? I've no desire to mangle the innards of my 720 to satisfy my curiousity.

CardBus means 32-bit PC Card.
PC Card usually means 16-bit.

But when we're talking about the slot, they always use the term "PC Card slot", and sometimes says "with CardBus support".
Yep it's bloody confusing.
http://www.pcmcia.org/pccard.htm

The CardBus actually has a slightly different groove than PC Card (16-bit), in addition to the stud strip. I do have some old 16-bit PC Card slots (for desktop) that simply won't let any CardBus in. And I can see that it's the groove that's stopping it, not the studs.

On the j728 tho, the CardBus goes in just fine. It doesn't even seem any tighter than a 16-bit card. My unit is fine, because I did open it once and the slot looks fine inside. It just seems to be designed to have more leeway than it should.

Actually there used to be a couple newbie threads asking about drivers for their CardBus card, and they certainly had no problem inserting CardBus into their Jornadas either. That said, it doesn't do anything. The card won't power up and the OS won't detect a thing. So there's no point in risking it. Don't try this at home

I'm going to try the 2011b in my 720. If it works it's obviously a pcmcia card. If not, well, maybe it's a driver issue, I won't know.

However, if it does work I'll be buying another one. I really like the led blinking in synch with the data rate. No blink, no data. I find it really frugal on power. It lasts forever in my casio sled whereas a prism card drains the sled battery like a hoover. The 2011b never heats to any degree. It's always cool to touch, another thing I like (low power draw I guess)

oooops, it appears I was a bit mistaken in the above post...

After reading the PC Card primer in more details, I found out that the groove difference is to distinguish the voltage, not the CardBus support. It makes sense that CE devices should support 3.3-volt.

The Intel 2011B is 3.3-volt. See page 10 of the reference guide.
http://support.intel.com/support/wireless/wlan/pro2011b/lanpccard/sb/cs-008112.htm

Finally, here's the differences between the 2011 series cards. It seems the major difference is that the 2011B uses a PRISM 2.5! \o/
http://support.intel.com/support/wireless/wlan/sb/cs-008408.htm

Takwu,

I am impressed. Your diligent research is great.

I know more about the 2011b than I ever imagined. Now that I'm aware it's a prism card the next challenge is to try prism drivers that contain downloadable firmware. I have a few prism drivers that are 1.x Mb and I always wondered why they were so large. Embedded firmware perhaps.

Now I wonder if my Spectrum card is based on prism chips? I've heard rumours to that effect.

I am curious about the key ridge. Does that imply there's a switch in the pcmcia slot to select voltage? Or does dual voltage only apply to cardbus slots? (I didn't read the pdf, maybe the answers are there?)

Takwu,

I am impressed. Your diligent research is great.

I know more about the 2011b than I ever imagined. Now that I'm aware it's a prism card the next challenge is to try prism drivers that contain downloadable firmware. I have a few prism drivers that are 1.x Mb and I always wondered why they were so large. Embedded firmware perhaps.

Now I wonder if my Spectrum card is based on prism chips? I've heard rumours to that effect.

I am curious about the key ridge. Does that imply there's a switch in the pcmcia slot to select voltage? Or does dual voltage only apply to cardbus slots? (I didn't read the pdf, maybe the answers are there?)

How is SH3 slow? My 360LX works great... I do like MIPS better, because you can run much more programs (including CE 1) on one HPC...