On 1999-07-31 [EMAIL PROTECTED] <John Oram> said:
>... there are three major generations of PCMCIA/PC Card
>firmware/BIOS & socket service software; plus minor to major
>variations from the slot-card hardware vendors themselves. Our
>experience is that you can only use the slot-card hardware with the
>proper generation of socket services with the proper generation of
>motherboard..
I see. Sounds like we're dealing with a lot of manufacturer-specific
hardware/software on the subject of PCMCIA with laptop computers. Which
means that it's best to shop carefully for what you're going to need and
use, if you want PC card support and a laptop; they're so expensive, so you
don't want to make mistakes. And used laptops? They appear to be a greater
gamble for the novice -- and greater challenge for the experienced hacker.
>"Cardsoft" was supposed to cure the problem. However, they still
>had a large stub (45K to 85K) in the lower 640K of the x86 memory
>model. Often you could actually do better by converting to PC-DOS
>7/2000 as you suggested. But, when dealing with the card services
>part of PC-DOS 7/2000, it is really designed to take advantage of a
>1996 or later motherboard & BIOS.
So I overshot my guess (five or seven years support); it should be about
four years. :) Looking at my memory usage with PC DOS 2000's PCMCIA
installed, I see that (using Ramboost) I've only got about 18,000 k loaded
low (otherwise, I'd have about 66,000 k in low memory. With everything else
loaded, I've got 548,752 free in conventional memory, which is fine for just
use with Net-Tamer or some other modem program (I have four different boot
configurations using the [MENU] statement).
>Unless someone is a high-level hacker and likes writing their own
>device drivers/card services, your SOL :(
Perhaps we should advise Klaus to save up for a used laptop with everything
functioning as it should without unpleasant surprises?
>Background:
>We tried to make this work with a 486/50 MHz, circa 1994
>motherboard. After driving to the mfg. in Silicon Valley and
>sitting with their "socket services" engineer, we decided our
>clients could buy new hardware or live with the generational
>limitations of their 1993-1994 corporate buying decision.
>This was no small decision on our part because there are over 3,000
>installed mobile computers.
I guess I should consider myself lucky to get my own 486/50MHz desktop and
Toshiba Satellite working well with a parallel InterLnk connection! I had
some doubts, at first, but apparently there's a lot less complexity with
that type of technical problem.
>Long live legacy hardware/software. It will do most of what it was
>designed to do when it was built. However, there are some genuine
>limits as to how far you can push any legacy (mobile) platform.
It's still a sad problem that many people still believe that more power and
gadgetry is the way of future mobile/desktop computing. If consumers can't
use legacy software and hardware, or it's not available, they are forced to
take what's offered to them. I bet most folks only use a fraction of their
"fun machines" capabilities -- and won't ever really need more...
Jerry
Internet Montana
Net-Tamer V 1.11.2 - Registered
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