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NEWlink Firewire 2-Port PCMCIA Notebook Cardbus
Add Firewire capability to your Laptop using the NEWlink PCMCIA Firewire 2 Port Cardbus. Suitable for all Firewire applications including connecting an Apple iPod. (please note however that the computer's PCMCIA port will not charge an iPod)
For PCs please see our
Firewire PCI cards
Product Features:-
• IEEE 1394-a (Firewire) 2 Port Cardbus
• Compatible with DV Camcorder, Hard Disk Drive, Printer and other 1394 audio/video devices including TV, VCR, DVD.
• Suitable for connecting an Apple iPod.
• Data transfer rates of up to 400Mb/s.
• Complies with Standard for IEEE 1394-a High Performance Serial Bus.
• Works with many DV Camcorders for digital video creating/editing.
• Hot-Plug feature allows you to connect/disconnect devices without powering down the system.
• Provides 2x 6 Pin Sockets
• Supports Plug and Play specification
• Connect up to 63 devices
System Requirements:-
• Any computer with a 32-Bit Cardbus/PCMCIA Type II slot
• Windows 98SE or higher
• Mac OS8.6 or higher
How to check your system specification
Older computers (generally pre-1997) will have legacy 16-bit pcmcia slots, which are not compatible with the 32-bit cardbus specification.
If you are using Windows, you need to find the Device Manager which can be found under Properties of My Computer. There should be an entry for PCMCIA socket or PCMCIA adapter. The text associated with this string should include the term Cardbus Controller which would indicate that it is 32-bit Cardbus compatible. If this term is missing, the pcmcia slot is one of the older legacy sort.
Information on Apple computers can be found at:-
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=24604
However we believe that the following are cardbus compatible:-
- PowerBook G3 Series
- PowerBook (Firewire)
- PowerBook G4
Back
PC Card standards Background
In 1985, the standardizing activity of PC card technology began with the Japan Electronic Industry Development Association (JEIDA). The organization was formed to promote memory cards, personal computers and other portable information products.
The Personal Computer Memory Card International Association PCMCIA) was founded in 1989 by a small group of companies that wanted to standardize memory cards for the classic reasons behind standardization - multiple sources, lower and shared risks, and larger markets. CardBay Ñ Next generation of PC card standard PCMCIA in association with JEIDA has worldwide support from more than 500 member companies for its PC card and represents the culmination of various improvements to earlier releases of memory and I/O cards for PCs. The PC card standard encompasses both 16-bit PCMCIA cards and 32-bit CardBus cards for laptops/notebooks. This ensures backward compatibility in the PC card specification.
From the physical specification aspect, the PC Card standard defines a 68-pin interface between the peripheral card and the PC card socket into which it gets inserted. It also defines three standard PC card sizes, called Type I, Type II, and Type III. The difference between Type I, II, and III cards are the mechanical dimensions of the PC Card. All PC Cards measure the same length and width, roughly the size of a credit card. Where they differ is in thickness. Type I, the smallest form factor, often used for memory cards, measures 3.3mm in thickness. Type II, available for those peripherals requiring taller components such as LAN cards and modems, measures 5mm thick. Type III is the tallest form factor and measures 10.5 mm thick. Type III PC Cards can support small rotating disks and other tall components. Whereas, the electrical specification defines three basic classes of PC card: 16-bit PCMCIA cards, 32-bit CardBus PC cards, and newly defined CardBay PC cards.
Defined are characteristics of each interface including power, signaling, configuration, and timing requirements.
CardBay is the next generation PC Card Standard being developed by the PCMCIA organization. The new CardBay PC Card standard incorporates the popular Universal Serial Bus (USB) into the PC Card format as the migration path for the most popular add-in card solutions. Just like CardBus and the original 16-bit PC Card standards, CardBay enables plug-in functions to become tightly integrated within a mobile device, such as a notebook/laptop computer or PDA. CardBay standard complements the existing PCI-based PC card technology by allowing the same connector to bring the popular USB serial interface into the PC card form factor. CardBay essentially substitutes USB for the existing PC card interface while retaining the CardBus physical connector and PC card format with USB specification supported. Potential uses of CardBay include USB-based advanced wired and wireless modems; security devices for fast secure encryption/decryption and authentication; and bulk memory devices, such as USB-based memory card-to-PC adapters for video cameras and media players. The desktop industry is moving towards lower and lower profiles, and are currently looking at the PC Card form factor for future adoption. Cardbus and Cardbay technology may soon be common place in the PC as well as in the Notebook/Laptop. CardBay uses will fall right in line with consumer desktop needs at home, as well as commercial uses at work. CardBay is also seen as the next enhancement for mobile markets and will reside along with the current 16 bit PCMCIA card and 32-bit CardBus card technologies. The goals of CardBay technology announced are as follows:
• Retain ease of use and operating system plug and play
capabilities
• Opens up a whole new market for USB-based product in
mobile devices.
• Maintain backward electrical and form-factor compatibility
with 32 bits CardBus and 16 bit PC card technology
• Provide a growth path for PC Card technology
• Provide for easily porting desktop technology implementations
to mobile PC card implementation.
• Open up doors for PC Card uses in the desktop environment as well as notebook/laptops
• Build on the software and power management base of
USB specification.
Comparison of Hi-Speed USB v2.0 and 1394
I/O connectivity is being further advanced with the IEEE 1394 standard. Hi-Speed USB and 1394 primarily differ in terms of application focus. The Hi-Speed USB Promoter group expects Hi-Speed USB to be the preferred connection for most PC peripherals, whereas IEEE 1394's primary target is audio/visual consumer electronic devices such as digital camcorders, digital VCRs, DVDs, and digital televisions. Both Hi-Speed USB and 1394 are expected to co-exist on many consumer systems in the future.
Hi-Speed USB and 1394 differ in application focus because of continuous evolution of the current environment. Today, there is a large and rapidly increasing installed base of USB-capable PCs, and hundreds of USB peripherals in the marketplace that connect to the PC. It is a natural evolution to increase the speed of USB and provide an easy migration path for existing USB peripherals. In the A/V consumer electronics equipment industry, IEEE 1394 is on its way to becoming the dominant connector. Therefore, if a PC wants to connect to one of these devices, it needs an IEEE 1394 connection.
They also support different connection models. Hi-Speed USB continues to use a low cost host-centric connection model, which is the best solution for a PC connection to PC peripherals. The added capability of a peer-to-peer connection enabled by IEEE 1394, however, allows a PC to connect to a cluster of consumer electronics devices, such as one that might exist in the family room.
Firewire background
IEEE 1394 defines two bus categories: backplane and cable. The backplane bus provides an alternative serial communication path for parallel bus devices plugged into the backplane. The bus discussed in this White Paper is the cable bus: a "non-cyclic network with finite branches" consisting of bus bridges and nodes (cable devices).
“Non-cyclic” means you can't plug devices together to create loops. A “bus bridge” connects between buses: a 1394-to-PCI interface within a PC, for example. The 16-bit addressing provides up to 64K nodes in a system, with up to 16 cable hops between each: thus the term “finite branches”. Six-bit Node_IDs allow up to 63 nodes to be connected to a single bus bridge (the limit for a conventional FireWire-to-PC adapter card); ten-bit Bus_IDs allows up to 1,023 bridges in a system.
Each node normally has 3 connectors (the standard allows between 1 and 27). Up to 16 nodes can be daisy-chained up to 4.5 m through the connectors for a total standard cable length of 72 m (longer using higher-quality "fatter" cables). Extra devices can be connected in a leaf-node configuration, as shown in the figure. Physical addresses are assigned on bridge power up (bus reset), and whenever a node is added to or removed from the system. No device ID switches are required, and the nodes are hot pluggable, meaning that FireWire is a true plug-and-play bus.
The FireWire cable standard defines three signalling rates: 98.304, 196.608 and 393.216 Mbits/s. These are normally rounded up to 100, 200, and 400 Mbit/s, and often referred to as S100, S200 and S400. The signalling rate for the entire bus is usually governed by the slowest active node, but the bus can also support multiple signalling speeds between individual pairs.
The IEEE 1394 protocol covers layers 1, 2 and 3 (physical, link and transaction) of the ISO’s seven-layer OSI model. The standard 6-conductor cable has two separately shielded twisted-pair transmission lines for signalling (crossed for transmit-receive), two power conductors (8 to 40 V, 1.5 A max.), and an overall shield. Transformer or low-cost capacitive coupling provides galvanic isolation (500 and 60 V respectively).
FireWire provides a flexible bus management system that connects between a wide range of devices, which do not need to include a PC or other bus controller. FireWire’s isochronous data transport provides the guaranteed bandwidth and latency required for high-speed data transfer over multiple channels.
NEWlink Firewire 2-Port PCMCIA Notebook Cardbus
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