Short for Personal Computer Memory Card International Association, and pronounced as separate letters, PCMCIA is an organization consisting of some 500 companies that has developed a standard for small, credit card-sized devices, called PC Cards. Originally designed for adding memory to portable computers, the PCMCIA standard has been expanded several times and is now suitable for many types of devices. There are in fact three types of PCMCIA cards. All three have the same rectangular size (85.6 by 54 millimeters), but different widths
Type II cards can be up to 5.5 mm thick. These cards are often used for modem and fax modem cards.
As with the cards, PCMCIA slots also come in three sizes:
A Type II slot can hold one Type II card or one Type I card
In general, you can exchange PC Cards on the fly, without rebooting your computer. For example, you can slip in a fax modem card when you want to send a fax and then, when you're done, replace the fax modem card with a memory card.
PCMCIA home page Site of PCMCIA, the worldwide organization for PC card technology. There are links to standards and literature, industry news, a resource directory, related Web links, information about PC cards, and the PCMCIA organization.
PCMCIA primer This is a primer on PCMCIA, adoption of standards, market information, and development efforts.
