PCMCIA on MacBook Pro

The Mac Book Pro uses an ExpressCard/34 slot. No mention of a PCMCIA card is in the specs on this page:

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2006/jan/10macbookpro.html

I tried Googling for a PCMCIA to ExpressCard/34 adapter and couldn't find one.

For more on it see, this article:

http://www.expresscard.org/web/site/qa.jsp

If you depend on PCMCIA and Cardbus cards, I would find out an ExpressCard equivalent, or see if you can let the card manufacturers know you'd like an easy to addon adapter to ExpressCard/34 so you can continue using the old card.

For applications like Camera media cards, you have many USB and Firewire card readers out there that already work on Mac OS X.

I, and my PCMCIA broadband card, sure hope it is still supported.

What is an ExpressCard/34 adapter?

If such a device exists, it would allow you to use your existing PCMCIA and Cardbus cards on machines with only ExpressCard/34 connectors. That's why I was searching for it before I answered your question.

For those with broadband wireless cards there's always the JunxionBox

For those with broadband wireless cards there's
always the JunxionBox

Yeah right, that's just what we need. Another laptop-sized box and an AC adapter brick to carry around on the road. Are you sure that's a reasonable replacement for a tiny bus-powered card?

Sorry, thanks for playing; we need to know who's producing the ExpressCard/34 replacements for all my PC cards, or a non-clunky adapter, before I can get a MacBook.

What is an ExpressCard/34 adapter?

If such a device exists, it would allow you to use
your existing PCMCIA and Cardbus cards on machines
with only ExpressCard/34 connectors. That's why I
was searching for it before I answered your question.

Such devices are physically impossible - PCMCIA cards are all wider than 34mm. Someone might come up with a PCMCIA->ExpressCard/54 adapter, which shouldn't be that hard since products like this are available:
http://www.psism.com/upisdma.htm

But as I said in another thread, I'm not sure why Apple didn't go for ExpressCard/54 (it's not like it's bigger than CardBus), and they might very well do so in the next revision.

No more physically impossible than Firewire to SCSI adapters. All we are talking is a dongle that is able to handle PCMCIA cards, has the necessary internal power to take their input and convert the signal to one that ExpressCard/34 cards can use.

That's why I say, if you find it is necessary, as with these wireless cellphone cards which aren't made another way, then you go ahead and ask someone who is able to make such adapters and let them know the demand for them is going to increase as more machines use ExpressCard/34.

Yeah right, that's just what we need.

I said it was an option. I never said it was a GOOD one.