[Coco] CoCo emulation on a Compaq Internet Appliance?

[Joe]

Hmm the gold strip denoted "cardbusness". Hmmm didn't know that. Judging 
from the vintage of the hardware is almost definatly 16bit. Also the USB 
connectors are probably 1.1 only. No drama there as we are trying to run an 
emulator not Vista. Even the old PCMCIA standard supported ATA with is what 
were after really. Just need SOMETHING to boot off of, Although I've read 
people have had trouble with larger CF cards in the 4Gig range. Probably a 
bios issue. Again I can't see that being a real problem. The only limiting 
factor I'm seeing is real floppy support. USB ain't going to cut it. I'm 
really hoping the bridge set has a built in controller we can get to without 
pulling hair out. As soon as I get the thing and apply screwdriver I'll know 
more.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Joel Ewy" <jcewy at swbell.net>
To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" <coco at maltedmedia.com>
Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2007 11:38 AM
Subject: Re: [Coco] CoCo emulation on a Compaq Internet Appliance?


> Frank Swygert wrote:
>> Sounds like a great idea -- if you guys get this running good I might
>> have to go looking for one!
>> There are PCMCIA hard drives available if you don't want to use a CF
>> card and adapter. I found one reasonably priced, an 8.1 GB models
>> here: http://www.kryptronic.com/demo/ccp0-prodshow/HDD1007.html. The
>> pic is a PCMCIA SATA adapter, but description is for a hard drive.
>>
> One word of warning.  A lot of people use the terms PCMCIA and Cardbus
> interchangeably, but they most definitely are not.  PCMCIA refers to the
> older, 16-bit cards, while Cardbus is the proper term for the 32-bit
> cards.  The physical interface is almost the same, and you can plug
> PCMCIA cards into a Cardbus slot, but not the other way around.  I have
> a number of old Compaq laptops (and others) that have the 16-bit PCMCIA
> sockets, which won't work with Cardbus cards.  I was finally able to
> find one model of 802.11b card that would work in the 16-bit slot, but
> most of them that were available by the time I was in the market for
> them were Cardbus.  There are lots of USB adapters for laptops, but
> they're all 32-bit Cardbus, not 16-bit PCMCIA, so there's basically no
> hope of adding USB to an older laptop that doesn't have it built-in.
>
> Roger, given the age of the the Compaq Internet Appliance, make sure you
> can find out whether the interface on it is PCMCIA or Cardbus -- you
> won't be able to tell by looking at it -- before you plunk down money on
> a piece of hardware you potentially cannot use.  The hard drive Frank
> mentions above for instance, will only work in a 32-bit Cardbus slot.
> But all of the CF adapters I have seen are 16-bit PCMCIA, and they run
> in the range of $10-$15.  Finally, you can tell the difference between
> PCMCIA and Cardbus cards (not slots) at a glance, because the Cardbus
> cards have a gold colored contact strip up near the front connector,
> while the PCMCIA cards do not.  If you follow the link to the 8.1G hard
> drive in Frank's message you can see this gold strip in the photo.
>
> JCE
>> Here's a link for a CF card adapter -- $50 w/a 2GB CF card isn't bad:
>> http://www.bixnet.com/5gbpcmcihard.html
>>
>> Anyone remember California Digital? They have several PCMCIA storage
>> cards. An interesting one is a battery powered S-RAM card -- 2MB for
>> $59. http://www.cadigital.com/pcmcia.htm.
>>
>> Those guys must have had a boxcar load of Tano Dragons -- they STILL
>> have them listed at $35 each!!
>> http://www.cadigital.com/computer.htm.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
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