Good Uses For The PCI Slot On A PB

[Earendil]

I have a 1.25ghz Alum PB, and am wondering what are some intersting uses for my PCI slot. I really have not been following the PCI slot market, what is out there, and what may be coming out soon. I have a digital camera, so I'm considering popping an xD card reader in there. But I don't need it, and before I buy, I'm wondering what other uses people have found for the PCI slot. As far as I know there are no performance enhancing (don't mean to sound like the morning spam...) upgrades for the PB's PCI slot, correct?

Any future tech on the horizon that takes advantage of the PCI slot?

Thank you kindly
Tyler
Earendil

ps
6 weeks traveling Costa Rica with my PB, not stolen, and only shut down once!! Uptime 10 days and 24 days. Only shut down because I was going to be on a boat. I Love Apple.

Edit: spelin' and gramor

 

[cpjakes]

There are many current uses, although the original ones were mostly wired network/modem cards for laptops. Now, there are card readers and wireless network cards. There are also high quality audio/video cards for the slots, Magma makes a PCI expander so you can hook up PCI cards in an expansion box to it. That's useful for really high end video and audio in a more mobile solution. There are also SCSI, FireWire, and USB cards to extend capabilities as well. The hardest part here is that not all of these PCMCIA devices have Mac drivers. It's a nice feature to have if you need it, a waste of space if you don't, I think.

cpjakes

 

[Counterfit]

I bought a PCMCIA -> CompactFlash adapter for $11 (there was a $5 too, but I didn't bother with it). Pretty handy, but not with a 16MB card

 

[Earendil]

Ah yes, Well I suppose I know about some of the basic uses for PCI slots, which is why I haven't bothered with them. My PB has USB 2.0, FW 400/800 Ethernet, modem, s-video, 54mbp wireless, blah blah blah. Now audio/Video cards sound nice. Just to clarify, the Audio/video "cards" you speak of are input/output plugs, not actual chips that take the load off the CPU/built in card, correct?

Now, the PBs only accept type I and II PCI cards if I'm not mistaken. There are also only 3 types of PCI cards? Without looking, I'm going to guess that the really fun and good cards require a slot type III, because my slot for a card is so small, I can't imagine plugging anything as big as video cables into it.

Cameras brings up another interesting question. What is the throughput on PCI slots? the USB is hella slow at downloading off my 128mb xD card (though it's probably USB 1.1). I would assume that a PCI card would be a lot faster? Any experience there?

Thanks once again
Tyler

 

[3-22]

I have a 1.25ghz Alum PB, and am wondering what are some intersting uses for my PCI slot. I really have not been following the PCI slot market, what is out there, and what may be coming out soon. I have a digital camera, so I'm considering popping an xD card reader in there. But I don't need it, and before I buy, I'm wondering what other uses people have found for the PCI slot. As far as I know there are no performance enhancing (don't mean to sound like the morning spam...) upgrades for the PB's PCI slot, correct?

Any future tech on the horizon that takes advantage of the PCI slot?

Thank you kindly
Tyler
Earendil

ps
6 weeks traveling Costa Rica with my PB, not stolen, and only shut down once!! Uptime 10 days and 24 days. Only shut down because I was going to be on a boat. I Love Apple.

Edit: spelin' and gramor

Not to split hairs but... It's a PCMCIA or PC Card slot not PCI. PCMCIA is pretty slow you would want to use the internal hardware instead of a PCMCIA network card or something.

PC Card I/II/PCMCIA - 10-33MHz 16 or 32 bits
PCI - 133MHz and 64 bits

Unless it comes with a CompactPCI slot? Does it? That would be wild...

 

[Earendil]

Not to split hairs but... It's a PCMCIA or PC Card slot not PCI. PCMCIA is pretty slow you would want to use the internal hardware instead of a PCMCIA network card or something.

PC Card I/II/PCMCIA - 10-33MHz 16 or 32 bits
PCI - 133MHz and 64 bits

Unless it comes with a CompactPCI slot? Does it? That would be wild...

Ok, that makes sense. Because I know a thing or two about PCI slots without actually caring (read, knowing very much). Vaguely in the back of my head I just figured that there were three types of "PCI cards" and that type III was the large one you see in desktop computers, and the one that can actually be used for things like video cards/sound cards/firewire ports. Which is why I was a bit surprised when someone replied saying I COULD put those things in my computer, because the slot is so small.
Now I see I was asking the wrong question.

So, What can I do with a "PC Card"/"PSMCIA slot, aside from an aiport card or camera card reader? If nothing interesting now, anyone know of things in the works from various companies?

 

[Earendil]

Also...

PCMCIA is pretty slow you would want to use the internal hardware instead of a PCMCIA network card or something.

PC Card I/II/PCMCIA - 10-33MHz 16 or 32 bits
PCI - 133MHz and 64 bits

How does this compare with the 1.2mbp that usb 1.1 is rated at?
I can't imagine anything being slower than USB 1.1

Tyler
Earendil

 

[3-22]

How does this compare with the 1.2mbp that usb 1.1 is rated at?
I can't imagine anything being slower than USB 1.1

Tyler
Earendil

No, it's considerably faster then USB 1.1...

 

[cpjakes]

The PCMCIA cards are not that slow, check out the work with Magma (http://www.mobl.com/expansion/) as I posted earlier. You can run sweet audio setups off of PowerBooks and other laptops with this. You can add four PCI cards to one PCMCIA slot. Most PCI cards don't take advantage of the total bus speed, so there isn't much of a performance loss.

 

[3-22]

So, What can I do with a "PC Card"/"PSMCIA slot, aside from an aiport card or camera card reader? If nothing interesting now, anyone know of things in the works from various companies?

Not a whole lot really, peripheral integration has really made them generally useless...

PCMCIA CF Card Readers are handy, but other then that most everything else is built in these days. Perhaps you might need a PCMCIA for some special device (RS232 ports, HP-IB, etc.) or something but then you run into the software driver issues. As for new stuff on the horizon there is a ton of stuff now...

Check out http://www.pc-card.com/main.cfm

 

[cypher]

How does this compare with the 1.2mbp that usb 1.1 is rated at?
I can't imagine anything being slower than USB 1.1

Tyler
Earendil

I'm not sure about this but isn't usb 1.1 11-12 mbps??

 

[titaniumducky]

I'm not sure about this but isn't usb 1.1 11-12 mbps??

Yep, 12 Mbps.

Would a USB 2.0 PCMCIA Card deliver the full throughput? What about firewire 800?

 

[RGunner]

Using a.....

3com Bluetooth in my Wallstreet PCMCIA and VERY happy with it

 

[D*I*S_Frontman]

You can add a FW800 card for less than $80 and have two completely seperate FW800 buses and RAID them together for fast i/o. Check out Barefeats--they found that the PCI card version of FW800 as fast or faster than the PB's original bus.

PCI cards can also be used with Magma expansion chassis to make HUGE systems out of a laptop for ProTools or MOTU system usage.

They are nice to have because you never know what new technology might surface that someone will make accessible via CardBus.

 

[idkew]

Yep, 12 Mbps.

Would a USB 2.0 PCMCIA Card deliver the full throughput? What about firewire 800?

i believe you would run into limitations at the transfer speed of the CF card before maxing out FW or USB2.

 

[idkew]

...

lombard eh?

my gf lives there.

completely off topic.