Never seen one before, but it looks really useful! I’ve got a PCMCIA to Compact Flash adapter that would go brilliantly with that!

https://web.archive.org/web/19961228232001/ht … om/sddaover.htm

Interesting! Thanks for sharing! 😎
I think that's possible because IDE is based on ISA.
Or if being old-school, AT-Bus. Early IDE HDDs were known as AT-Bus drives for a reason.

IDE or ATA (AT Attached) is a sub-set of ISA, so to say.
It includes most fundamental i/o signals, but has a fixed port address,
determined by the host adapter (ISA) - or IDE controller (PCI).

If memory serves, there used to be EPROM programmers that interfaced with ISA through IDE.
Similar like prommers did in the C64 days (they attached directly to user port).

By the way, streamers were similarly odd sometimes.
The cheap 3,5" ones interfaced via high-speed floppy controller cards.
Technically, the controllers were usable for the usual floppy drives, too, if there was some compensation for the oddball i/o address.
A hacked driver.sys or driveparm utility, I suppose.

Edit: There also was similar stuff in the old Pocket PC days..
I remember, there used to be WLAN (aka Wi-Fi) adapters for the CF or SD slot.
By using these, older Win CE devices could be integraded in the then new WEP64/128-based wireless LANs. 😉
Looked a bit like the Gameboy Camera installed in a Gameboy Color.

PC Hoarder Patrol wrote on 2021-05-03, 05:09:

sddabig.jpg

https://web.archive.org/web/19961228232001/ht … om/sddaover.htm

Appreciate the find. So it appears that this was sold to the general consumer along with a host of other interfaces...interesting. Will be more interesting to see what kind of benchmarks I can squeeze out of this thing once I get it set up.

There is one for sale on eBay right now. (not my sale)
https://www.ebay.com/itm/184675613945

I'm not sure how useful it would actually be unless you already have some PCMCIA drives laying around.

After all, you can get IDE to CF and IDE to M.2 adapters for really cheap.

cyclone3d wrote on 2021-05-04, 06:22:

There is one for sale on eBay right now. (not my sale) https://www.ebay.com/itm/184675613945 […]
Show full quote

There is one for sale on eBay right now. (not my sale)
https://www.ebay.com/itm/184675613945

I'm not sure how useful it would actually be unless you already have some PCMCIA drives laying around.

After all, you can get IDE to CF and IDE to M.2 adapters for really cheap.

Pretty useful I would think if not just for the novelty factor if you have a CF to PCMCIA adapter, and there are plenty of them out there on Ebay for a reasonable price. Picked one up myself for under $9 US and free shipping, so they're about the same price as a CF to IDE adapter. I like the idea of having the drive accessible from the front of the machine rather than internally or from the rear like most adapters.

some high end router and switch used the linear flash cards and this adapter is used to put software on it.

Cheers,

some high end router and switch used the linear flash cards and this adapter is used to put software on it.

I was looking into getting a linear flash card and see if this works with my thinkpad 600.

Cheers,

pentiumspeed wrote on 2021-05-05, 00:06:

some high end router and switch used the linear flash cards and this adapter is used to put software on it.

I was looking into getting a linear flash card and see if this works with my thinkpad 600.

Cheers,

It should. I've used that 8MB flash card in my Thinkpad 600E. I believe it sees it as removable storage, but you can't boot from it.

deleted. susplus.

Brickpad wrote on 2021-05-05, 00:07:

pentiumspeed wrote on 2021-05-05, 00:06:

some high end router and switch used the linear flash cards and this adapter is used to put software on it.

I was looking into getting a linear flash card and see if this works with my thinkpad 600.

Cheers,

It should. I've used that 8MB flash card in my Thinkpad 600E. I believe it sees it as removable storage, but you can't boot from it.

Actually to boot from.

I tried CF cards and PCMCIA adapter card, would not work, not detected. I think the documentation is vague, I think it has to do with type of flash design that needs to be either spinning PCMCIA or linear flash that I did not know about till later. Spinning card kind are rather expensive. Linear flash is cheaper.

Cheers,

pentiumspeed wrote on 2021-05-05, 00:20:

Actually to boot from. […]
Show full quote

Brickpad wrote on 2021-05-05, 00:07:

pentiumspeed wrote on 2021-05-05, 00:06:

some high end router and switch used the linear flash cards and this adapter is used to put software on it.

I was looking into getting a linear flash card and see if this works with my thinkpad 600.

Cheers,

It should. I've used that 8MB flash card in my Thinkpad 600E. I believe it sees it as removable storage, but you can't boot from it.

Actually to boot from.

I tried CF cards and PCMCIA adapter card, would not work, not detected. I think the documentation is vague, I think it has to do with type of flash design that needs to be either spinning PCMCIA or linear flash that I did not know about till later. Spinning card kind are rather expensive. Linear flash is cheaper.

Cheers,

Are you talking about booting from a CF card inside the PCMCIA adapter? I don't think that's possible as there is no option in the BIOS to boot from the PCMCIA slot, spinning drive or otherwise. You're better off using a CF to 44pin IDE adapter, albeit accessing the IDE slot is rather difficult in the 600 series.