USB on an old laptop

If you are anything like me then you have an old laptop that you are just waiting on your tail to be able to upgrade it. My problem came about when an old IBM thinkpad was given to me. This IBM does not have USB, so I am limited in my use on it. I’ve been thinking around a solution for adding USB to it.

The main issue at hand is that it only has a 16-bit PCMCIA card slot. All the USB add on cards that I’ve ever seen are 32-bit, and are incompatible with my old thinkpad. I’ve been looking around to see if any 16-bit USB cards are available anywhere. I cannot find them anywhere. Someone once told me that it was all part of a conspiracy theory. That all the 16 bit USB cards were only available in countries where computers are just becoming availble.

Well, here is my theory that I would like to try out sometime. Compact Flash technology is just a derivitive of PCMCIA. It seems to me that all compact flash cards are 16-bit. If this is the case, then there should be no problem adapting a USB Compact flash card to PCMCIA 16 bit. If anyone has tried then let me know. It is just a theory, and I know that there are other issues like drivers, and OS supportability. Let’s just forget about those issues and focus on hardware.