New way to read P2 cards on a desktop?

TwistedLincoln

TwistedLincoln

Veteran
This really isn't that exciting, but I thought it would be useful to some of you.

A company called Magma makes a PCMCIA cardbus card that can be used to add full-size PCI cards to a notebook. Why is this useful to any of us? Well I thought one could use it with a desktop... how? why? Read on:

As of now, the only Cardbus readers that anyone have found for the PC have been PCI cards. This means one has to plug in your P2 cards into the back of your PC. With this device, you are essentially adding PCI slots to your PC externally. Of course, in order for this to do you any good, you'd need two PCMCIA cardbus adapters-- one for the PC for this device to plug into, and another to put inside of this device to read the P2 cards with.

There isn't any prices listed, so I'm guessing this is very expensive, but one never knows...


For more info on this device, goto: http://www.mobl.com/expansion/products/cardbus_expansion/2slot/index.html

And here's a review (for the same device, though for a different application):
http://www.tradersworld.com/computers/MagmaReview.htm
 
We've been testing this adapter, so far the results are inconclusive. It doesn't meet the CardBus standard by extending the bus, but there is something we may be able to do to it to make it work well with the P2 Cards.

David
 
David, wouldn't it be feasible for your firm to do a plain 1-2 slot USB2>cardbus P2 reader.
The only competition is Panasonics $$$$$$ 5-slot model.
 
Actually the P2 Store is the cheapest way to do that, since it will mount the Slot as a drive.

But to answer your question, we started the work on it and realized that it would be over 1K when it would be done. There is a lot that would go into this product. We do have an FPGA with PCI and CardBus interfaces that we designed for the CinePorter™ and I think we'll revisit this project after the CinePorter™ ships.

David
 
I see, thank's for the insight.

It's just so hard to grasp that this is so expensive when you can get a CF reader for $20 :-)
 
I understand how you feel. This is a common request and it seems that nobody wants to believe that it's not an easy task. The Problem is that CardBus is a PCI Bus extension. So whatever mounts in it has to be a PCI peripheral, unlike a Memory or a PCMCIA device.

David.
 
If they do, that's great. It can be done with one chip if the market is there. For us, the market is small since we are in the Video business and not in Computer Peripherals, where you have to get millions made in China to compete.

We'll have to keep our eyes on these, something will come up.

David.
 
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