pcmcia one is just passive pins, cardbus would be full PCI IDE controller

Yes, I have one which is Lexar branded. It is faster but not super fast (6MB/s). And unlike the plain 16-bit PCMCIA ones, it needs drivers installed rather than using a generic driver.

There are, but they are rare. And the UDMA one is virtually impossible to obtain.

https://cloakedthargoid.wordpress.com/laptop- … ansion-cards-4/

That was my thought as well. Where are all of the UDMA compatible CardBus adapters.

I guess most of them were made for cameras that just didn't need it.

I managed to snag one of these today for way too much money. My curiosity got the better of me and I want to see how it performs.

I also found these all over eBay. They appear to be NOS. Does anyone know why they are so stubby? They are shorter than a standard PCMCIA card.

Actual CARDBUS eSATA II adapters do exist. I have some. Mine are Dynex branded. I don't remember the chipset and I do not recall exactly how fast they are but, AFAICR, they were fast enough for SATA hard drives.

If they work with SATA to IDE adapters, a passive IDE to CF adapter should work cascaded after the SATA to IDE adapter. Hopefully, (U)DMA would work too.

The advantage of it being an all-in-one adapter is that it isn't hanging off the side of the laptop. This is the same reason I never used eSATA.

Kahenraz wrote on 2025-01-22, 02:29:

I managed to snag one of these today for way too much money. My curiosity got the better of me and I want to see how it performs […]
Show full quote

I managed to snag one of these today for way too much money. My curiosity got the better of me and I want to see how it performs.

The attachment Screenshot_20250121-211832_eBay.jpg is no longer available

I also found these all over eBay. They appear to be NOS. Does anyone know why they are so stubby? They are shorter than a standard PCMCIA card.

The attachment Screenshot_20250121-212818_eBay.jpg is no longer available

The short one is for machine use:
https://www.amazon.com/Davitu-Motor-Driver-co … 0/dp/B09FSX6T5Z

The gold connector suggests CardBus but the label says PC Card. I wonder which it is.

Kahenraz wrote on 2025-01-22, 17:00:

The gold connector suggests CardBus but the label says PC Card. I wonder which it is.

Looks like cardbuspc-card? by looking at the sides.
fyi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC_Card#Bus looking at the photo...
is the wiki correct? I thought it was the other way round. the silly wifi card I based this first on is apparently a pc-card, not cardbus. No I know. :-p

Kahenraz wrote on 2025-01-22, 02:29:

The attachment Screenshot_20250121-211832_eBay.jpg is no longer available

I also found these all over eBay. They appear to be NOS. Does anyone know why they are so stubby? They are shorter than a standard PCMCIA card.

They're made to go in semi-modern CNC machines and several other types of industrial machines. They are half length because the card usually slots in perpendicular to the face of the control panel with a water/dust/oil proof door that closes over it. Having a full length card would mean they probably would have to increase the depth of the control panel.

Kahenraz wrote on 2025-01-22, 17:00:

The gold connector suggests CardBus but the label says PC Card. I wonder which it is.

"PC Card" is generic, could be either PCMCIA (16b) or Cardbus (32b).

Are you sure? I thought PCMCIA was the form factor and PC Card was 16-bit and CardBus was for 32-bit.

Kahenraz wrote on 2025-01-22, 02:29:

I managed to snag one of these today for way too much money. My curiosity got the better of me and I want to see how it performs […]
Show full quote

I managed to snag one of these today for way too much money. My curiosity got the better of me and I want to see how it performs.

The attachment Screenshot_20250121-211832_eBay.jpg is no longer available

I also found these all over eBay. They appear to be NOS. Does anyone know why they are so stubby? They are shorter than a standard PCMCIA card.

The attachment Screenshot_20250121-212818_eBay.jpg is no longer available

Any chance you ran speed test for this adapter?

Not yet. I just came in the mail yesterday. I have a non-CardBus adapter on its way too, for comparison.

Kahenraz wrote on 2025-02-02, 03:16:

Not yet. I just came in the mail yesterday. I have a non-CardBus adapter on its way too, for comparison.

I had to create an account for this, since I have been wondering the same question. So, have you had time to test the new adapter yet? Results would be very interesting, if of limited practical value for most people.

About the PCMCIA / PC Card / Cardbus naming clusterf***. The original name of the standard was PCMCIA, which was also the name of the trade association that developed it. Soon they started to worry that there might be some confusion if the name of the organization and the standard was the same. So, PCMCIA contacted IBM for permission to use the "PC" acronym, which was trademarked and heavily enforced by IBM. They got the permission (presumably paid something for it) and renamed the standard to PC Card, while the hardware spec remained essentially the same.

However, it was too late and PCMCIA stuck until a few years later they developed the new 32-bit Cardbus standard based on standard PCI. The name of the actual standard and cards remained PC Card. Cardbus was just the name of the new 32-bit interface, which as you know was backwards compatible with the 16-bit "PCMCIA" PC Cards. Some people started to think that PC Card meant only the new 32-bit cards, since nobody used that name before the 32-bit Cardbus interface was adopted. To add more confusion, others just continued to call it PCMCIA whether they were talking about 16-bit or 32-bit cards. Thankfully they were a minority, but that didn't improve the messy situation much.