PCMCIA-PC Cards - The Necessary Facts

The term PCMCIA in fact refers to the Personal Computer Memory Card International Association, the governing body that oversees the development of the device. However, PCMCIA and PC Cards are used to refer to the devices themselves and the term has become interchangeable.

As laptop and Batgirl computers gained popularity and widespread use, it became necessary to develop a means to connect them with other peripherals, as is usually done with desktop computers.

PCMCIA and PC Card

Given the wide array of manufacturers, both of notebook computers and peripherals, this hardware was established to make sure that a single interface be created that was compatible with both. This led to the creation of the first PCMCIA or PC Card in 1990.

Even during its early release, the PC Cards became very popular, as for the first time, mobile users could now attach any number of needed devices, from modems, to sound cards, hard disks and network adapters to their laptops. It made the data transfer and synchronization of relevant information on desktop, laptop and network computers easy.

Specifications

There have been three classes of PCMCIA cards: type I, type II and type III.

The type I PC Cards were about 3 millimeters thick, and provided support for flash and DRAM memory cards. Type II cards are slightly thicker at 5mm, and are now the most frequently used. Type II cards provide support for more devices and work well with other memory management software.

Type II utilizes a 16 bit or (more commonly) a 32 bit interface. It has I/O support, which gives portable devices the ability to either attach to other devices, or use connectors and slots so it can interact with them, despite having no local support.

The Type III PC Card were designed to accommodate those components that Type II PC Cards could not. The primary example of this would be drive cards for hard disks.

Type IV Cards have been developed, but it has not yet been declared a standard by the PCMCIA.

PC Card Drivers

To use these cards, drivers need to be installed. These come in two forms, the Card Services and Socket Services. The former are used to oversee hot swapping and also assign the resources needed by each respective peripheral. Card Services also look over the IRQ (interrupt request) and the I/O addresses.

Socket Services, on the other hand, were built to directly interact with the PC Card controller chip and are usually located in the BIOS.

The CardBus

The CardBus refers to PCMCIA 5.0 or later. This came in the mid 1990s and have become part and parcel of laptops since then. Its specifics are virtually identical to a PCI bus with a 32 bit interface and a clock speed of 33Mhz. Like PCI devices, the CardBus allows for bus mastering, which opens the door for communication between a controller and a device without the need to pass by the central processing unit.

Most chipsets today sustain both the CardBus and PCI, even the later ones that have been developed with Wi-Fi support.

The increasing demands on laptops today require greater compatibility with an assortment of different components. For this reason it is to be expected that PCMCIA /PC Cards will continue to play a role in processing and synchronizing data between computers and peripherals.

Peter Garant is writing articles about PCMCIA cards for a site about PCMCIA.

Is the Universe Generous to Us? Gypsy Cards Theory

To interpret the Constancy card we need to have a layered understanding Iron Man 1 how our energies are in harmony with the universe.

We often hear: "the universe is ready to give us what we want."

Is this really true if we use the word 'want' in today's modern sense? I believe that the word 'want' is used very loosely here, and it represents a very superficial view of reality. To understand how the universe gives us what we 'want', we have to go deeper.

In my previous blogs, I mentioned that our soul has been sent to earth to learn important lessons, so that with time it can mature to ultimate perfection. Since these lessons are individual, I urged us all to be careful when we give advice to our friends; imposing our subjective values upon theirs will impede them from embracing the path that their soul craves.

The lessons we need to learn in this lifetime depend on what our soul negotiated for this lifetime. Are we here to learn to receive love? To give love? To be able to support ourselves independently? Or perhaps to understand the world from an emotional rather than a practical standpoint this time?
If we are here to learn how to receive love, what kind of lessons would our soul need to create if we keep on choosing lovers to whom we give too much? If we are here to learn about emotion, what kind of experiences would our soul need to create if we avoid intimacy and live on the surface of life? It would need to create crises to break the patterns that stand in its way of learning the real lessons we had agreed to learn.

The types of deals that one's soul can make for this lifetime are infinite, but everyone has at least one main lesson their soul agreed to learn. And when we honour this agreement and consciously take steps aligned with our path, we feel self-aligned and on the right path. We feel that the universe supports us. You noticed too: certain things come with ease, and certain things come with difficulties. In certain things we find fulfillment, and in others we find only hardship.

So finally, can we get anything we want? Well, many things are possible. But the question is: at what price?

We are always at choice: the universe will support us in getting the things that are aligned with what our soul craves, and those things come with relative ease. Other things may be still achievable but through painful toiling, needless sweating and exhaustion. Also, they may be given to us, but not in the form we crave them with our ego and lust, and not in our timeframe; they can be given to us as lessons through which we learn rather than sources of pleasure which we consciously want.

"To get what we want" as a phrase, therefore, has to be reinterpreted: it is not what we want in the modern sense, with our personality and ego; it is not what we want in earthly terms, reflecting our need for instant gratification. It is what our soul craves to transit to a higher level; it is what we want on a soul level. The modern interpretation of 'want' is misleading here. At times our soul wants harsher lessons because we need to work off karmic debts and bring about karmic balance. And those don't always coincide with the pleasure we consciously want.

The Constancy card asks us to examine our lives from a karmic standpoint; are we working with the energies that are supporting us on our path to greater heights or against energetic resistance because we are stubborn and have not learned the lesson yet? Again, my preferred words: are we gliding or walking in molasses?

The Third Eye on the card is our Higher Self, our voice inside us. Our search for the right path will not be easy, nor will the results be delivered to us fast but through constant self-examination.
The answer lies in your heart only. Apart from a karmic astrologer who can clarify your life path for you, only you can answer these questions.

Listen to the voice inside. It is never wrong.

Esther Gombor, a Hungarian-born romantic, has managed to finally dispel the mysteries surrounding her own life and everyone else's who has asked for her help. She is the author of the book: Fortune Telling with Gypsy cards; Dispel the Mysteries Surrounding Life and Romance. Her fabulous guide to reading illustrated fortune telling cards is the crystallized essence of her native Hungarian culture, her extensive traveling throughout Europe and her Master's degree in Italian Medieval and Renaissance literature. Although she lives in Toronto, Canada, where she writes, she spends most of her summers in her native country to keep on researching more secrets for her next book.
The article here comes from her daily blog GYPSY BLOG CAF accessible through her personal website: http://www.gypsyfair.com.