What do you put in your PC card slot?

February 24, 2006 10:59 PM

What do you put in your PC card slot? Nowadays, many laptops come with stuff like Wi-Fi and flash card readers built-in (as mine does), and it seems like every peripheral is connected through USB. Eight years ago my modem lived in the PC card slot. But is there anything cool and/or useful I can do with it today?
posted by Nikolai to Computers & Internet (11 answers total)

I like the idea of the stashcard, personally.
posted by twiggy at 11:19 PM on February 24, 2006

I have my laptop docked at home most of the time as a desktop replacement, and when it's there I stick a 5.1 soundcard in it (from Creative) to get surround sound for music, games, and videos.
posted by robbie01 at 11:54 PM on February 24, 2006

There is a neat bluetooth mouse that will store and charge inside the card slot, and looks like it could be handy, albeit of questionable comfortableness.
posted by umrain at 12:15 AM on February 25, 2006

You could buy a 5GB PCMCIA hard drive and use it for critical backups, a music library, or a sandbox for downloaded files.
posted by Smart Dalek at 5:45 AM on February 25, 2006

I just remembered, if your system's fast enough, you could throw in a TV tuner/PVR expansion.
posted by Smart Dalek at 5:49 AM on February 25, 2006

Extra USB / Firewire ports, instead of having to carry around a USB hub.
posted by cactus at 6:08 AM on February 25, 2006

I've got a CF adapter to download files from survey equipment.
posted by Mitheral at 6:42 AM on February 25, 2006

I have a network card in there and the network port on the laptop disabled. Saves the laptop port from use since I connect/disconnect from the network a lot. Wears out a $15.00 network card rather than an onboard network connection.
posted by disclaimer at 6:49 AM on February 25, 2006

Ditto the CF adapter on my home laptop, since it has everything else built-in.

On the work machine I switch between a full-size Firewire card, the 5.1 sound card mentioned already, and a Verizon cellular broadband card for emergency work during hurricanes.
posted by mkhall at 7:39 AM on February 25, 2006

I use a digigram vx pocket sound card so I can input digital audio from my taping rig to my vaio.
posted by wakko at 8:18 AM on February 25, 2006

Magma makes CardBus to PCI expansion bays, but they're fairly pricey. These days, when I use mine, I use it for USB 2.0 expansion and additional network interfaces for debugging/testing/site surveys.
posted by j.edwards at 11:55 AM on February 25, 2006