For more than a year, most laptops sold have come equipped with one or two PCMCIA slots on their sides. These slots give PCMCIA credit-card-sized modules direct access to the laptop's electronic internals, letting devices like memory cards and network interfaces run at the computer's full internal speed.
PCMCIA comes in three flavors: Type I (3.3-mm thick); Type II (5.0-mm thick); and Type III (10.5-mm thick). All of the cards use the same interface, so there's no problem plugging a Type I card into a Type II slot. Most Type I cards are used for extra memory. Type III cards, when they appear, are likely to hold miniature hard disks. The real action these days, though, is with Type II interfaces.
Xircom's Creditcard Ethernet Adapter (list US$349) lets me drop my PC laptop onto a network. Using the PC/TCP software package from FTP Software ($400), the laptop can directly access the files on the network server's hard disk, use its DAT tape drive for backups, and print to my PostScript printer. I can transfer files back and forth at nearly 1.6 Mbits per second - more than seven times faster than through Xircom's previous ethernet adapter, which connected to laptops through the parallel port.
Xircom also sells a Creditcard Ethernet Modem, which builds an ethernet adapter and a V.32 turbo/V.42 data/fax modem into the same Type II card. That card lists for $699.
For people who can't stand being tied down at all, Xircom has its Creditcard Netwave Adapter, which creates a wireless ethernet by using a 2.4 GHz, frequency-hopping, spread-spectrum radio. The indoor range of the card is 30 to 50 meters. Equip two laptops with these $499 cards and they'll be able to transfer files to each other as if they were on the same LAN. The base unit, called the Xircom Netwave Access Point for Ethernet (priced at a cool $999), connects the radio-based network with a physical ethernet LAN. You'll need one of these base units every 100 meters in your plant if you want campuswide coverage. The only problem with the spread-spectrum units, experts say, is security: Broadcast your data into the air, and anybody with one of these jewels can pick it up - even your competitors, if they should be so sneaky to rent an unmarked, adjoining office.
Xircom, Inc: + 1 (818) 878 7600. FTP Software, Inc: +1 (508) 685 4000.
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