PC Card

PC Card (formerly PCMCIA card) was a 16-bit peripheral interface standard used by early mobile devices. The specifications for PC Cards and its successor, CardBus, were developed by the (PCMCIA).

History
PCMCIA cards were originally designed for memory-expansion cards for data storage, based on development by the (JEIDA). Because PC Cards were based on the 16-bit data bus standard, they also supported a range of other devices, such as hard drives, modems, and network cards. These were superseded by CardBus, based on the 32-bit PCI bus.

Types
Card types specify only the physical thicknesses of the card.
 * Type I: 3.3 mm (0.13 inch) thick
 * Type II: 5.0 mm (0.20 inch) thick
 * Type III: 10.5 mm (0.41 inch) thick
 * Type IV: 16 mm (0.63 inch) thick, not officially standardized and only supported by
 * CompactFlash: A subset of the PCMCIA standard that used 50 of the 68 pins to support the IDE interface. CF Type I adapters allowed smaller CF cards to be accepted in a PC Card slot.

Releases

 * PCMCIA Standard Release 1.0/ 4.0 - June 1990, based on the form factor used by the game system, supported Type I and II sizes.
 * PCMCIA Standard Release 2.0/JEIDA 4.1 - September 1991
 * PCMCIA Standard Release 2.01 - November 1992, added the Type III form factor.
 * PCMCIA Standard Release 2.1/JEIDA 4.2 - July 1993
 * PC Card Standard Release 5.0 - February 1995, introduced the CardBus standard.
 * PC Card Standard 5.01 Update - March 1995
 * PC Card Standard 5.02 Update - May 1995
 * PC Card Standard 5.03 Update - November 1995
 * PC Card Standard 5.04 Update - March 1996
 * PC Card Standard Release 6.0 - March 1997
 * PC Card Standard 6.1 Update - April 1998
 * PC Card Standard 7.0 Release - February 1999
 * PC Card Standard 7.1 Update - March 2000
 * PC Card Standard 7.2 Update - November 2000
 * PC Card Standard 8.0 Release - April 2001, introduced the CardBay standard.

Apple models with PC Card support

 * PowerBook 500 series, May 1994 (with optional PCMCIA expansion module)
 * PowerBook 190 series, August 1995
 * PowerBook 5300 series, August 1995
 * PowerBook 1400 series, October 1996
 * eMate 300, March 1997
 * Some newer Apple models supported CardBus, which were backwards compatible with PC Cards.

Articles

 * How to Use a PC Card in Your Laptop at Dummies