Compaq PCMCIA 2 MB Memory card

[JT64]

http://www.tradera.com/2MB-Memory-Card-PCMCIA-COMPAQ-auktion_88743036

Was the older PCMCIA memory card just storage cards, or actual memory expansions?

If they actually were memory expansions, would it be possible program a driver to use SD or CF memory cards in pcmcia adapters to expand memory in old laptops? I think the old compaq used SRAM how do they compare in speed with SD and CF memories.

JT

[Terry Yager]

http://www.tradera.com/2MB-Memory-Card-PCMCIA-COMPAQ-auktion_88743036

Was the older PCMCIA memory card just storage cards, or actual memory expansions?

Yes and no. The card you're looking at is probably not a PCMCIA card. Before the PCMCIA existed, there was, at first, no standard, and every maker used their own proprietary cards. (Compaq was one of these companies, and their cards were, at first, RAM expansions only). Later, the Japanese computer companies formed a committee to design a standard, called JEIDA. The American manufacturers soon followed suit, with a committee and a (different, of course) standard. The seller of the card you're looking at may not be sure what kind if card it is, as they often look very similar.

OTOH, it is possible to use a standard PCMCIA card as a RAM expansion. A number of companies did so in their laptops, including IBM, who used the cards for RAM in quite a few of their machines. Of course, there's no telling how much hocus-pocus (hard- and software) it would take to kludge such a setup into a mainboard that wasn't designed for it from the ground up.

--T