Re: Cables and or connectors

[Sven Utcke <utcke@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello John,

> Alex - Please be aware that the PC3100 supports PCMCIA type I cards
> only.

Well, although type-II (*) cards can be inserted using a little bit of
force(**), things are even worse than that: the Sharp only supports
Version 1.0 of the PCMCIA-spec, which is explicitly for memory only
--- _no_ I/O device is officially supported!  And although at least
one modem had been specifically manufactured for the HP95LX and the
Olivatti Quaderno (which apparently suffer from the same limitation
--- the Quaderno certainly does), this would only work with a
PC3K-specific driver (which, to my knowledge, doesn't exist), and
never worked particularly well even inside the machines it was
intended for.

> Using a self powered external device with a serial input does make
> sense.

Absolutely.  Of course, being able to use IRdA would be just so much
cooler (although not neccesarily more workable) --- but it seems to be
night impossible to implant the PC3K with the necessary logic (talking
about which: even replacing the serial port with one sporting a real
fifo would be a _great_ help!).

> I may be experimenting with a external cellular phone with built in
> modem but will need to purchase a connecting cable.  More if I ever
> get one and then get it to work.  

Yes please!

Sven

(*) Type-I is 3.3mm thick, while type-II is 5mm.  Type-III would be
    10.5mm.  All cards share the same connector, and thinner ones can
    be installed into slots for the thicker ones, but not vica-versa
    --- generally speaking :-) 
(**) NOTE: I do this regularly for the CF-card, but should your
     computer break doing this, you get to keep both pieces.
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