Laptops & PC Cards

[Jukie]

Anyone know roughly when laptops were no longer produced with PC Card/PCMCIA slots?

TIA, David.

 

[neilz]

AFAIK lots still are, I have a very new HP-Compaq TC4400 which has one despite being ultra-slim (doesn't have a cd-drive but has a slot).

Why are you asking? Lookig for the newest laptop with one?

 

[grober]

There are still some around AFAIK. ExpressCard - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Sp!ke]

Laptops with express card slots have been shipping from about 2005.

You can buy adapters to work with older pcmcia stuff.

 

[Jukie]

My 6-year old laptop died recently. I have a couple of PC Cards which I used regularly (sound card; tv card) and am looking to acquire a reasonably spec'd replacement. Doesn't have to be new and running XP will be fine.

 

[neilz]

Still some

E.g. Dell Latitude E4300 laptop £1200 new - core 2 duo P9300 - WEBCAM | eBay

pcmcia | eBay UK

 

[Sp!ke]

get an adapter.

 

[whizzkid11]

Anyone know roughly when laptops were no longer produced with PC Card/PCMCIA slots?

TIA, David.

They still are...

 

[neilz]

6 years is about the newest of my laptop collection.

I would highly recommend the HP Compaq TC4400 if you can get one. That's what I'm using now - from ~2006, very very fast and I'm using it with Windows 8 Developer Preview with no problems. Only downside - no CD drive.

HP Compaq tc4400 | Laptops | Reviews | PC Pro

 

[Jukie]

@ Neilz. Thanks but I would be looking at spending a fracton of the cost of that Dell! Any replacement would not need to be brand new.

 

[neilz]

Do you need a CD drive? If not, try bidding for this: HP TC 4400 Tablet Pc & Desktop Dock | eBay

HP TC4400 Tablet 1.83GHz Core2Duo 1GB 60GB WiFi BT | eBay

HP Compaq TC 4400 CORE 2 DUO 2 GHZ Laptop Tablet PC ( 250 / 60 hd ) 1.5 GB 12.1" | eBay

HP Compaq tc4400 12.1" Tablet Laptop | eBay

Really couldn't recommend it highly enough. I recommend you do read the PCPro article on it: HP Compaq tc4400 | Laptops | Reviews | PC Pro

If you do need a DVD drive, try looking for an IBM Thinkpad T60. INCREDIBLY fast and reliable (mine just had a serious overheating problem and I'm slowly rebuilding it). So sturdy as well. Had almost 300 tabs open in Firefox in Windows 7 while using Photoshop and Microsoft Word - no problems at all (and it's quite cheap now). thinkpad t60 | eBay

 

[Sp!ke]

Any 6 year old laptop will be pretty close to being scrap - surely?

 

[neilz]

Sorry, Sp!ke, completely wrong!

My spare laptop: 1998 Umax Actionbook, fast, with WiFi (PCMCIA), running XP
"Wordprocessor" laptop: 1995 Toshiba Satellite, Windows 98SE, with WiFi (PCMCIA)
Desktops: 1997 Dell Dimension T450 (Windows XP), 2000 Dell Dimension (Windows XP)
Main laptop: 2006 HP-Compaq TC4400 (Windows 8 Developers Preview)
Server: 2002 Tiny Computers (no model number) running Windows Server 2008

All alive and healthy

My computer monitor is from 1995 (server) and 1997 (Desktop) and 2000 (Desktop)
My printers are from 1992 (Laserjet 4), 2001 (Laserjet 4550).

Old technology can still do everything demanded of it over a decade on

Today's society is a throw-away society but just because of advertising brainwashing people. Nothing I have every goes wrong and in the rare event something needs more RAM upgrading is much easier and cheaper than with modern computers.

 

[Sp!ke]

I think about these things differently. Time is money - laptops are now cheap. It needs to be quicker than me or I am not being as productive as I could be.

I can't believe you are running Win98 on anything - how unsecure is that and when was its last security update?

Your CRT monitor will be using so much more power than a LCD. Replacing it for a lovely 22" LCD would only have an 18 month ROI and by keeping the CRT you are burning money and straining your eyes to boot.

The same can be said for all your old latops, desktops and servers. There's simply no point in hanging on to them, it costs you more in the long term.

 

[dsolds]

Old technology can still do everything demanded of it over a decade on.

Not if you need 64 bit it can't. I also find any computer with older hard drives to be terminally slow as well. Pre SATA generally although the last of the IDE were OK.

From memory the earliest 64 bit machines with SATA disks appeared around 2006 ish. I still have a Compaq laptop from then, a NX9420 which is still very useable. Bit its predecessor which I still have, a Sony Vaio with a P4 2.8 and IDE disk is like a wounded slug in general use.

 

[neilz]

My CRTs have much more accurate colour representation than modern screens and two of them are Energy Star certified (the third is a very rare 12" CRT (from '95) foruse with my server which I hardly ever use). The main one I use is a 1997 DEC 14" (a rare model as well) which has reasonably high refresh rates and screen resolutions (1024x768 at 85Hz, can do higher resolution but refresh rate drops to 60).

The laptop gets urgent Windows updates still (support for it has officially ended) and I have a modern antivirus on it (a good one).

With my laptops, I use the phrase "if it ain't broke, why fix it". They could run a modern version of Linux if I want. The screens are good, the oldest does 800x600 and the newest 1280x1024

 

[Colin_b]

I think about these things differently. Time is money - laptops are now cheap. It needs to be quicker than me or I am not being as productive as I could be.

I can't believe you are running Win98 on anything - how unsecure is that and when was its last security update?

Your CRT monitor will be using so much more power than a LCD. Replacing it for a lovely 22" LCD would only have an 18 month ROI and by keeping the CRT you are burning money and straining your eyes to boot.

The same can be said for all your old latops, desktops and servers. There's simply no point in hanging on to them, it costs you more in the long term.

Rather depends what you are doing Simple non-sensitive word processing or browsing is fine on Win98. Sure no security updates, but little new malware for 98 either. And performance is remarkably good!

I have an elderly dell laptop running Linux. Worth about 4p, does everything I want it to do, and spending £400 to replace it would be a waste.

Agree about the CRT, though.

 

[neilz]

If I told you my server ran NT4 Server until July...

It blocked hacking attempts successfully (i.e. people trying to hack in couldn't get through) but having people trying to log in as "Owen" non-stop for 6 hours a day did get a bit annoying. Reported the IPs but the University of Glasgow (90% of hacking attempts came from there) did bugger all. Server 2008 somehow has fewer attempts.

And if a 1992 HP Laserjet 4 (mono) and a 2001 Laserjet 4550N (colour) are faster and more reliable and better quality than the Samsung Xerox Phaser 6110N which died after a year, why do people upgrade? Or maybe newer electronics are made to die so people constantly upgrade?

But moving slightly back on topic - PCMCIA cards really shouldn't be phased out and many modern laptops (like the ones I linked to) still have slots for them. WiFi cards and Ethernet cards which use PCMCIA are more unobtrusive/take up less room than some USB ones (though I appreciate most laptops have integrated ethernet and WiFi).

 

[Superspec]

If you're into your tech old kit can be great fun to keep alive. If you just want it to work when you need it without having to **** about with it get a new one!

PCMCIA largely disappeared about 4 years ago. The slots in laptops are pretty much all Express cards now. You can get adaptors I believe, the problem you might have is getting drivers to run the old hardware on a new computer.

 

[clever dicky]

I dont bother with HP laptops any more. The last few I had died prematurely, although their warranty is good when its valid. The pavillion series and some of the media based laptops just kept failing. I still see lots on ebay perfect but dead.

I buy Lenovo now (IBM)
Fantastic well spec'd machines. Solid and well built.