[Coco] CoCo emulation on a Compaq Internet Appliance?

[Kevin Diggs]

Joel Ewy wrote:
> 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

Actually you can. The difference is very subtle though. If you look at 
the connector end of one of these cards, the left side has a u shaped 
slot or grove cut in it. The right side has a ledge. The height of the 
ledge is different between cardbus and PCMCIA. With a little experience 
I think you will be able to identify the slot as well.

I have a Nec Versa M/100 486DX4 laptop that appears to have cardbus 
slots. Can't get linux to work with cardbus cards though (2.4.31)

> 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

I have a really cool looking Lexar cardbus CF adapter. Handles CFII 
microdrives. ... Nope ... can't get it to work in linux either! 
!##$$%^^*&*%$

> 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