The difference between PCMCIA I ,II and III is the height of the Card. A type I has a height of 3.3mm type II 5mm type III 10.5mm. Card-Bus is a newer type of PCMCIA-Cards with a 32bit-BUS-interface.
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Difference between 16-bit vs. 32-bit PCMCIA Type II (Wireless) Adapters
I've never been a laptop user until recently. All I know is PCMCIA allows for storage & peripheral expansion like USB and that there is Type I, II, & III for PCMCIA. It wasn't until I was shopping for 802.11b wireless PC card (as well as one for LAN) that I found out there are 16-bit PCMCIA cards (I've only seen type II), and 32-bit ones (also saw only type II), which are called cardbus adapters.
Interestingly, few laptop descriptions mention any 16/32-bit and cardbus support for PCMCIA. and you have to look thru the spec sheets to see what PCMCIA types are supported too. Though that isn't much of a concern for recent laptops as PCMCIA is standard for those, they all support the current protocols. But this matter is essential for older laptops which may not support them. then you would have to find 16-bit versions. I figure old ones only support 16-bit. Are there even any 16-bit versions for wireless PC cards? i haven't seen any. but at least there's wireless via USB.
The laptop I currently acquired is an IBM ThinkPad 600E (hence the PC card shopping). Luckily, the laptop was new enough to support the 32-bit cardbus.
So what's the main difference between 16-bit PCMCIA and it's 32-bit cardbus counterpart as they both use PCMCIA type II connections. and what would happen if you stuck a cardbus card into a 16-bit PCMCIA slot? (wouldn't fit, no detection, unknown device detected, error, or detected & installed but doesn't work?)
also tho this is a tad off topic, be nice if someone can answer these last few questions:
what's PCMCIA type I & III used for? It seems to me that type II is the most commonly used.
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by: jhancePosted on 2003-08-03 at 14:07:08ID: 9063083
Any laptop you buy that was made in the last few years will be CARDBUS and 32-bit capable. It's only the older ones that may be 16-bit only. A CARDBUS laptop will accept an older 16-bit non-CARDBUS card but a newer card will probably NOT work in an older non-CARDBUS laptop.
See:
http://www.pcmcia.org/faq.
for a discussion of the Type I, II, III as well as many other common questions.