Hello newbrier,
It seems that PCMCIA to adapters of any sort are rare but I may have
found what you're looking for:
http://www.macworldextra.co.uk/showme_detail.lasso?manufacturer=CMS&nextURN=38557&skip=0&title=ABS%20PCMCIA%20%20to%20%20USB%20Convertor%20
This is a PCMCIA to USB adapter, however, it states that it is
designed for ABS (Automatic Backup System) which may be a proprietary
technology. I'm not sure if this will work only with an ABS drive or
interface with any PCMCIA card.
Here are a couple of other related products:
PCMCIA to PCI:
This is the closest thing to a working universal product that I found
but this would not help you connect your PCMCIA card to your laptop,
this would only work for a desktop or if you could somehow convert PCI
to USB or Firewire (which I actually looked into and is opening a
whole different can of worms and creating a complex mess that you
shouldn't have to get into)
http://quatech.com/catalog/drives_pcmcia.php
The following product is exactly the type of thing you would need,
however, this is only a development kit.
PCMCIA to USB (development kit):
http://www.arstech.com/usbpcmcia.htm
I'm an electrical engineer but I do not know the precise details of
the PCMCIA bus. I think that part of the problem here may be that
PCMCIA cards require direct interaction with the the motherboard of
the host computer because the bus is more complex than, for example, a
standard serial bus like USB. It is probably quite a complex task to
simulate the PCMCIA bus on one side, using the USB interface to talk
to the motherboard and may well require custom drivers for each PCMCIA
card to work with such an adapter. Unfortunately for your sake, it
seems that no one has really found this worth implementing for
production, hence why it is nearly impossible to find a product
matching your exact description.
I hope that information helps. Basically, it seems like a product of
this nature does not exist except for development, use with ABS
drives, or for interfacing with a PCI bus. |
