Why dont they just make pcmcia videocards for laptops?

[Greaser]

A small pcmcia adapter would be similar to pci wouldnt it? I'm not sure of the speed of pcmcia, but I know pcmcia devices get HOT so I dunno.




Just food for thought.

 

[Mday]

probably the same reason they don't make pcmcia CPUs for laptops

 

[IamDavid]

Impossible from my understanding of laptop designs. I do remember when I bought 2 16MB ram cards.. That was a total waste of money..

 

[AndyHui]

The PCMCIA bus is just too slow to be effective for video cards. Although it is supposed to be the equivalent of the PCI bus (32-bit @ 33MHz) for CardBus and ISA for the older PCMCIA 16-bit standard, it just doesn't seem to really perform.

Another problem is that PCMCIA/CardBus is not initialised until after the Operating System loads, and drivers are loaded. No good for video, since it needs to be persistent. Other requirements such as hot pluggability would also make it inappropriate.

There IS a video standard for PCMCIA/CardBus though, called Zoomed Video, or ZV. You can find out more about it here, although I have never seen any ZV cards.

 

[Sunner]

<< Another problem is that PCMCIA/CardBus is not initialised until after >>



I think thats a very good reason.
PCMCIA cards are indeed software controlled and arent started until the driver is loaded.