Garrett D'Amore wrote: > James Carlson wrote: >> Garrett D'Amore wrote: >> >>> PCMCIA stops at 20 Mbps (b for bits). Its not performant. USB 1.1 >>> maxes out at 11 Mbps. USB 2.0 goes a lot faster (480 Mbps I think.) >>> >>> If it were possible to eliminate pcata it would eliminate quite a lot of >>> complex code. I've not looked seriously into this -- are folks using >>> pcmcia CF slots? Cardbus, PCI, or USB (2.0) are all vastly faster. >>> >> >> Yes. I have a CF adapter that I use on PCMCIA with a laptop, but not so >> often. The desktop machine has a USB-connected CF adapter that works >> just as well, and SD is more common now anyway. >> > > Yeah, everyone uses USB for this stuff mostly these days, and SDcard is > a lot more prevalent. (CF mostly lost the format wars, despite being > simpler, and in many ways faster. I think the physical form factor -- > which is inappropriate for mobile devices like phones -- is probably > what killed it in the long run.)
Canon introduced a new DSLR camera in the last 6 months that only uses CF for storage the 7D. There is also a massive installed base of Canon DSLR. Even the Canon EOS 1Ds MK III uses CF (but can also use SDHC) as does the up and coming EOS 1D MK IV (though at 4678 GBP I personally won't be buying one any time soon!). Sure you won't see CF in many (if any) compact digitals or smartphones but CF is still big in the DSLR arena. One reason a Cardbus/PCMCIA CF reader is interesting in this area is so that there isn't a cable hanging out of the laptop to a reader - something that might be important when "in the field" uploading from your cards to the laptop. Sure most people doing this are probably using a Mac or Windows but at least some of us do use OpenSolaris for this. -- Darren J Moffat
