Laptop ones only work "off the bat" in later OS. Anything you're tryna run plain DOS on with a PCMCIA interface is going to need card services tsr installed at boot.... the possible exception being GridPads which I think might have a PCMCIA storage driver in firmware, but not totally sure how those work.

they used to be quite common and plentiful, but have disappeared over the years and are now a bit scarce. easiest way to get one nowadays is buying an ISA wireless or RF card which was just an ISA PCMCIA adapter with the wifi card installed in it. otherwise you buy a "kit" which is the ISA card and two 50 pin cables which run to two slots that go in a 3.5" bay housing. those are essentially just AT bus extenders with a PCMCIA chip requiring card services.

They show up for sale from time to time, not that expensive either, some past auctions:
https://auctions.yahoo.co.jp/closedsearch/clo … -8&exflg=&haq=6
https://auctions.yahoo.co.jp/closedsearch/clo … ei=UTF-8&exflg=

IO Data CardDock:
https://web.archive.org/web/19981206152809/ht … ccard/index.htm
Ratoc 5051 series:
https://www.ratocsystems.com/products/old_pro … ts.html#adapter

Recently found ISA card that accepts PCMCIA cards in one otherwise boring regular soc7 Pentium system. Have not tried it yet but it was interesteing enough piece of hardware to keep 😀

The reason I'm asking, is that I will have only one ISA slot in computer, and it would be nice to have PCMCIA cdrom, sound card and network without removing card 🙁

That's the only slot at all? No other options, PCI, USB etc? Because an ISA sound with CDROM connector is easy to find (even if you have to take the ribbon external to an external enclosure) but finding a PCMCIA sound card that works as good as a cheapass ISA soundcard is difficult and expensive, and also may not offer advantages over a PCI soundcard if there's room for one. Then I'd rather use a USB network adapter than have to swap at all and put up with a hinky sound solution.

ISA riser card ?

Niezgodka wrote on 2021-11-04, 21:07:

The reason I'm asking, is that I will have only one ISA slot in computer, and it would be nice to have PCMCIA cdrom, sound card and network without removing card 🙁

Actually, I've considered this for a build as well - it has two half-length ISA slots on a riser in a tiny low-profile case - oh, and a half-sized babyAT motherboard with no onboard I/O at all. As I got it, one slot had a VGA card, the other a multi-I/O card. Neither could sensibly be left out, but I at last found a half-length ISA VGA + I/O card. Ancient Acumos AVGA1 chipset, but a 486SLC isn't a powerhouse either and I only want to run DOS on this thing. So what to do with other slot? First thought is a decent sound card, but networking would be cool too - and I recently found an old 802.11b PCMCIA WiFi card with Orinico chipset with DOS support.

But reality-check: PCMCIA sound cards are as rare as hen's teeth (I don't have one, closest I come is a Cardbus sound card, but that won't interface to an ISA bus), CD-Rom can be done over PCMCIA, but parallel is probably easier and easier to find too, which leaves you with networking. Wired networking is easier (no TSR drivers needed!) with native ISA, and WiFi is limited to ancient 802.11b-1999 chipsets which can't connect to networks with current (WPA2/WPA3) security, meaning you need a dedicated (and layer 3 secured) network for this sort of stuff.

Only reason I want to try is that I work in the WiFi business, this system is actually in the lab at work for R&R during lunch breakds (boots to Arkanoid Revenge of Doh 😜 ) and I really want to see the looks on my colleagues' faces when I show them that 1980s-looking beige box is not just online but online via WiFi :+

First things first I need to find my ISA-to-PCMCIA adapter card, then find drivers and get them working. Could take a while...

dionb wrote on 2021-11-04, 22:34:

Only reason I want to try is that I work in the WiFi business, this system is actually in the lab at work for R&R during lunch breakds (boots to Arkanoid Revenge of Doh 😜 ) and I really want to see the looks on my colleagues' faces when I show them that 1980s-looking beige box is not just online but online via WiFi :+

Since you mentioned expansion space is at a premium, you could use one of those WIFI over serial adapters if you have a free serial port. Then you could run PPP over that if you need TCP/IP, or use it as-is for BBS-style internet access. Although if you're going to use PPP, it would be better to use something like a Pi zero with a serial port hat, since then you could run the PPP server directly on the Pi and not need anything else to directly reach internet hosts.

Don't the ESP-8266 based serial to wifi adapters do that already, convert the protocol onboard?

BitWrangler wrote on 2021-11-05, 03:02:

Don't the ESP-8266 based serial to wifi adapters do that already, convert the protocol onboard?

I've not seen an ESP-8266 or ESP32-based serial to wifi adapter that provides PPP onboard. Probably due to resource limitations on such embedded devices.

Using a Pi would be a lot easier and would much more flexible. You might even be able to also run an HTTP proxy on the Pi so it could terminate HTTPS traffic for the older/retro computers, although the Pi Zero may or may not have enough horsepower to pull all of this off (maybe the newly released Pi Zero 2 W would).

mscdex wrote on 2021-11-05, 00:25:

dionb wrote on 2021-11-04, 22:34:

Only reason I want to try is that I work in the WiFi business, this system is actually in the lab at work for R&R during lunch breakds (boots to Arkanoid Revenge of Doh 😜 ) and I really want to see the looks on my colleagues' faces when I show them that 1980s-looking beige box is not just online but online via WiFi :+

Since you mentioned expansion space is at a premium, you could use one of those WIFI over serial adapters if you have a free serial port. Then you could run PPP over that if you need TCP/IP, or use it as-is for BBS-style internet access. Although if you're going to use PPP, it would be better to use something like a Pi zero with a serial port hat, since then you could run the PPP server directly on the Pi and not need anything else to directly reach internet hosts.

mscdex wrote on 2021-11-05, 06:11:

BitWrangler wrote on 2021-11-05, 03:02:

Don't the ESP-8266 based serial to wifi adapters do that already, convert the protocol onboard?

I've not seen an ESP-8266 or ESP32-based serial to wifi adapter that provides PPP onboard. Probably due to resource limitations on such embedded devices.

Using a Pi would be a lot easier and would much more flexible. You might even be able to also run an HTTP proxy on the Pi so it could terminate HTTPS traffic for the older/retro computers, although the Pi Zero may or may not have enough horsepower to pull all of this off (maybe the newly released Pi Zero 2 W would).

Fully aware of those options, in fact the one colleague I particularly want to surprise is a developer who uses ESP32 for most of his projects (although he's not into retro stuff), and given the power of that thing it should be able to do PPP (though probably not HTTPS proxy). But the thought of doing it in legacy (if 8 years younger than the PC) hardware appeals more, plus performance will be much better - I estimate I can get enough out of 802.11b to pretty much max out the ISA bus, even given the awful pollution in the 2.4GHz band in our lab (sometimes ancient, weak modulation is actually and advantage 😜 ) and I'm sort of hoping to find a PCMCIA 802.11a card with DOS support, which would definitely max out any ISA bus.

Hello sirs, I just bought this ISA card with a socket PCMCIA. Do you know where to find the manual or any information about this card and how can I use it?
Thank you very much

This card seems to be part of a specific car diagnostics solution from BOSCH (KTS500).
It came with a pcmcia card to interface cars.
It worked with the Software/drivers from BOSCH integrated in the software "ESI[tronic]".

Here is a link i found about this problem (its in german, use auto translator)
https://www.viermalvier.de/ubbthreads.php?ubb … t&Number=498326

They discuss that the card seems to use very specific resources and bad driver support (maybe intentional from BOSCH to prevent using Esitronic on non BOSCH systems).

Thank you very much.

Therefore, nothing to do with this card?.

I have not clear this subjet. Many people talk about the drivers and support for the Diagnostics PCMCIA card (the storage PCMCIA card itself) but in my opinnion they are not talking about the adapter ISA>PCMCIA card (with the socket for PCMCIA cards).
I want to use this adapter card (ISA to PCMCIA) with an adapter PCMCIA to Compact Flash.
My question: Should I need a driver in MS-DOS or in Windows 98?
Thank you very much

With a card that has AT IDE mode, I think it should show up as an IDE drive, so right, no driver required. However, DOS isn't usually looking for IDE drives on IRQ 10 or 11 where the ISA PCMCIA card might have put itself, and if it's not on 14 or 15, BIOS won't have passed CHS values. Win98 on the other hand, may detect it and make it available for use. If it's possible to disable any secondary IDE hardware on IRQ 15 the board already has, and the BIOS supports boot off second channel, and you use a CF card well inside the BIOS capacity limits, then it may be possible to force ISA PCMCIA card to IRQ 15 and boot off it. This might affect use of PCMCIA for other cards while booted off it though. PCMCIA aware BIOSes may behave differently, let you boot off it on different IRQ (Laptops, industrial computers)

jnemo2004 wrote on 2024-01-15, 14:53:

I want to use this adapter card (ISA to PCMCIA) with an adapter PCMCIA to Compact Flash.

Is there a special reason you want the pcmcia layer in between IDE and a CF card?
You can use CF cards as Harddrives with just a small passive 10 euro adapter.
There are even brackets for the rear of the pc already made for accepting cf cards and a direct ide connection...