PCMCIA Compact Flash or SD card adapter? - Macintosh Garden

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2013, July 2 - 3:16am

#1

jebug29's picture

jebug29

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PCMCIA Compact Flash or SD card adapter?

I have a PowerBook G3 Wallstreet. As far as I know there's no USB 2.0 support for Mac OS 9, and my current PC Card with 4 USB ports doesn't work with it period.

So, I figured it'd be easy to just get a PCMCIA Compact Flash adapter and a CF card. Well, it's hard to find one for a good price, especially when some under a gig cost about as much as a 16 gig one. The market for them doesn't make much sense to me.

Then, I figured, "Hey! I have an extra SD card! Why not just find a PCMCIA adapter that supports SD cards. Then I could transfer files from other systems too!" Well, all the SD adapters I could find were around 20 bucks, which is a bit much for an adapter that I'm not even sure will work. I'd also like to find an SD adapter more so that I could use my SD cards with the PowerBook G4 I have on its way.

The CF adapters were much cheaper (around five dollars), and I looked into getting an SD to CF adapter, but the overall price would pretty much be the same as buying an SD adapter.

So, can anyone recommend an SD card adapter that will work with the PBG3W running OS 9? Or if there are reasons I should just look into buying a more expensive CF card?

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2013, July 2 - 3:25am

#2

pvar

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Joined: 2013 Jan 13

Well the best you can do, if you have it is Firewire. PCMCIA does work OK, but on most G3/G4s there is a rather uncomfortable delay in getting data moving that Firewire doesn't have. For the Wallstreet that might not be an option. A good place to find all the stuff you are looking for cheap is eBay or better yet Fry's Electronics if you are near to one.

2013, July 2 - 3:54am

#3

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jebug29

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Joined: 2011 Sep 7

As far as I know it doesn't have a firewire port. I'm not at my house right now so I can't check.

Speed isn't a huge issue. It's just that my normal routine for transfer between computers is a pain in the butt. Here's how it goes:

-Get out long, yellow ethernet cable and hook it into the back of my 2011 iMac
-Zip the transfer files and upload them to dropbox (slow)
-Turn on Internet sharing on the iMac
-Hook up the ethernet cable to the PB
-Bitly the dropbox link
-Boot the PB (slow)
-Launch Classilla (slow)
-Type in the bitly link
-Download the file and unzip it
-Move files into place
-Unhook the computers
-Turn off internet sharing
-Put up ethernet cable

As long as the PC card doesn't take 10 or 20 minutes to get done, I'll be fine. XD

2013, July 2 - 6:26am

#4

24bit

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Joined: 2010 Nov 19

Off topic: Panther or Tiger is not an option, I presume?
If you should consider OSX this might be the one for you: http://www.transcend-info.com/support/dlcenter/index.asp?#Detail
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Transcend-Express-Card-Reader-for-SD-SDHC-SDXC-U...

2013, July 2 - 7:30am

#5

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bertyboy

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Joined: 2009 Jun 14

I have a PDQ, and had a Lombard before that, PCMCIA will turn out to be deadly slow, whether you use Compact Flash (I have two) or SD, or a CardBus USB adapter. Ethernet wins every time.

Not sure what the fuss with Ethernet cable is about, I thought the PowerBook would be portable. And just use Mac OS File Sharing between then - make sure "File Sharing clients can connect over TCP/IP" is set on OS9.

2013, July 2 - 6:02pm

#6

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jebug29

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Joined: 2011 Sep 7

I might try backing up my files via the file sharing option bertyboy talked about and then repartition my drive to dual boot between OS X Panther and OS 9. The last time I even tried running OS X on that computer, it was slower than Christmas. Then again, it was the OS X Public Beta.

EDIT: Well, no, because the ISO is too big and I only have a CD-R drive in the PB.

2013, July 4 - 7:13pm

#7

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jebug29

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Joined: 2011 Sep 7

I think I'll just forget about it for now. The only one that I saw that was promising was from Hong Kong.