You guys are great! Thanks a bunch for all the great info. I may rethink and get a 1400 after all. I was all prepared to bid on one, the other day, and I asked the seller a few ?'s and mentioned USB and the guy was honest enough to email me back and say that he didn't think it would be USB compatible. Takes a good seller to actually tell someone info like that. The unit that I was inquiring about is still up for grabs but it's gone a little too high for me. If I get one I'm sure I'll have more ?'s. Thanks again, Craig LC, 6200/75, 6400/200 and iMac/400DV
on 6/15/02 5:09 AM, Flint Million (PB List) at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > First of all, most Mac laptops will never support USB. However, there is > light at the end of your tunnel: get your hands on a Mac with a PC Card > slot. Namely, the 5300 series and the 1400 series, if i remember right, > have a PCMCIA slot. > > The slots on these computers are not CardBus compatible, and since USB is > a 32-bit interface and requires the 32-bit capabilities of CardBus, using > a PCMCIA USB adapter is out. However, if all you need to do is read CF > cards, go out to Best Buy or any decent computer store and pick up a > CompactFlash-to-PCMCIA card adapter (about $10-15). This little device is > shaped exactly like a PCMCIA card, and has a space to slide in your CF > card. When this is done, and you install it in a slot on your PB, it will > appear on the desktop just like another hard disk. When you "eject" it, > the card itself should actually pop out of the slot. > > You can also find adapters for Smart Media, MMC, and Memory Stick memory > cards that will convert any of those cards to a PCMCIA card. The only > thing you must ensure is that the adapter will emulate a PCMCIA ATA disk. > For the CF adapters this is a given because all CF cards emulate an ATA > disk (basically, they pretend to be an IDE hard drive!) and the adapter > does nothing of its own except to "put the square peg in the round hole" > (it makes the pins on the CF card match their equivalents in the PCMCIA > slot). However, for other memory standards compatibility is entirely up to > the adapter because the memory cards themselves do not emulate ATA. > I would feel pretty confident however that any PCMCIA adapter would > emulate an ATA disk so basically any PCMCIA flash memory should be > compatible. > > I've successfully read CF cards and Smart Media cards using the > aforementioned adapters and even have used the older full-size PCMCIA Type > II memory cards in a 5300 with no problems under Mac OS 8.1. If the 1400 > has PC card slots (I'm pretty sure it does) you shouldn't have any > problems when and if you get one. I'm not sure if there are any OS issues > on OS'es other than 8.1, but hopefully everything will just work as it > always should on a Mac. > > Good luck > > On Fri, 14 Jun 2002, Craig wrote: > >> I'm new on here and I'm looking at some used PB1400's. Everything I've read >> while reseaching says no USB connection can be made with a 1400. Is this >> true? If not what about a Compact Flash card reader? I need something to >> download images from a Digital Camera on the road. I don't want or need to >> spend a fortune for something that's not going to be used a lot. But I've >> always liked the 1400's. >> >> -- PowerBooks is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Enter To Win A | -- Canon PowerShot Digital Cameras start at $299 | Free iBook! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> PowerBooks list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/powerbooks.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/powerbooks%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Mac? Free email & more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
