 In the wonderful world of laptops there are many, many things that can be done. In our earlier Tech Tips we mentioned some of the goodies that you can look for when purchasing a lappy. In today’s Tech Tip, we’ll be looking at a very important aspect that most every laptop has already integrated: expandability – particularly at the PC Card, and later, the ExpressCard expansion.
 In the Beginning…
For years and years laptops came with the ubiquitous expansion slot known affectionately as PCMCIA. Also, for years and years, PCMCIA was just the right kind of expansion needed for the average laptop. Whether adding a modem (yes, those were the days!), networking or even extra storage, PCMCIA fit the bill. What exactly is PCMCIA anyway? PCMCIA really, in all fairness, isn’t a what, it’s a who. PCMCIA stands for Personal Computer Memory Card International Association, an organization made up of several companies that developed the standard for what was known as a PCMCIA Card (yes, there is a joke that PCMCIA stands for People Can’t Memorize Computer Industry Acronyms, but we won’t go there). To better differentiate the organization from the card, it was decided to rename the PCMCIA card to PC Card.
Ok, now that we got that down, there’s more to throw at you. The PC Card was originally designed in the early 1990s as a way for adding additional cheap memory to a laptop computer. It proved to be very successful in this and was found to be well suited for several other types of expansion and doodads. The PC Card is about the size of a credit card (85.6 by 54 millimeters to be exact), and comes in three different types, differentiated by their thickness. Type I cards are 3.3 millimeters thick and are ideal for use as memory and  storage on a laptop. Type II cards are 5.5 millimeters thick and are usually used for modem, network or even TV card expansion. Type III cards are 10.5 millimeters thick and were ideally used for add-ons needing a thicker card, such as hard disk drives.
Many laptops commonly came with two PC Card slots that could accommodate either two Type I /II cards or one Type III card. CardBus were PC Cards that were introduced in the mid 90s, and were basically a souped-up PC Cards that ran faster, allowed for bus mastering (where a card could “talk” to other devices on the computer without the need of going through the CPU) and were 32-bit rather then 16-bit cards that most of the original PC Cards were. CardBus cards have a slightly smaller notch on their interface side as well eight small bumps on the top metal grounding plate on the interface side. Essentially, all laptops made after 1997 could handle CardBus type PC Cards.
Move Over PC Card for the New Card in Town
Many people who have purchased a laptop in the last couple of years have noticed something "different" about them. Their PC Card slot seems to have morphed into something else. This brings us up to the wonderful world of the ExpressCard – also brought to you by those fun loving people at the PCMCIA organization. ExpressCard slots “kind of” look the same as PC Card slots, and ExpressCards “kind of” look like PC Cards – but alas, the two are not interchangeable. This means that that dandy PC Card modem that you bought back in 2001, unfortunately, won’t fit into that ExpressCard slot on your new computer as most new computers do not include both types of slots. This is OK as the ExpressCard format was designed around the new PCI Express bus as well as the tried and true USB standard, which means that they are faster and better then the PC Cards that they replaced.
ExpressCards come in two standard formats: ExpressCard/34 so called because it is 34 millimeters across (34 by 75 millimeters to be exact) and looks like a big stick of chewing gum, and ExpressCard/54 surprise, called this because it is 54 millimeters across (54 by 75 millimeters, again, to be exact) and is an L-shaped card. Both cards are 5 millimeters thick and both cards use the same connector interface. While an ExpressCard/34 card will fit into both ExpressCard/34 and ExpressCard/54 slots, an ExpressCard/54 will only fit into an ExpressCard/54 slot.
 To Infinity and Beyond
In this Tech Tip we have looked at the start and evolution of expansion slots in laptops. Whether you are adding an updated sound card or even the latest Wi-Fi device to your laptop, you have the power to expand with PC Card or ExpressCard quickly and easily. So, take a look at the slot on your laptop and think of the possibilities of the goodies you can add – all it takes is the right card for the right computer. |
