PCMCIA hard drives being specialed out

Those PCMCIA drives were always pretty neat. I have a couple of older 60mb and a couple 20mb ones with my old laptop. Nowadays, I look at my 256mb and 512mb Flash card stick and still become amazed at how fast the flash cards caught up.

Hi Lewin,

Those prices are great. However, considering that you can buy a USB memory stick with similar storage space for under $50 I'd probably go that route. No moving parts, compatible with almost any modern PC, not just laptops. With a PCMCIA card or drive you may have problems moving files to a desktop which could be the reason that these drives didn't make it. I use CD-R and CD-RW. Even more space and even more compatible, much lower in cost.

Now when it comes to parts such as small motors these drives might be a real bargain for a serious hobbyist.

Regards, Joerg

Also these are type III PCMCIA cards which will not fit into the single slot of most current laptops.

Ian

I was thinking more along the lines of support for legacy systems. A lot of people in c.a.e need to support legacy systems :)

These drives tickle my "cool product" bone but I can't quite think of anything useful to do with them.

Hi Lewin,

Good point. Many legacy systems work a lot better and more reliably than non-legacy ;-)

Indeed they do. There has got to be a bonanza of cool electro-mechanical parts in them. Like really flat motors, tiny steppers, clutches and so on.

Regards, Joerg

I wish they'd have drives with pcmcia on one end and usb on the other. As you say, ALMOST everything has usb, but some legacy equipment has only pcmcia. (and windows 95, don't get me started...)

Rufus