Generic pcmcia network card driver windows 7

The acronym PCMCIA represents both the PC Card standard (which specifies both card hardware and system software requirements), and the organization responsible for developing it.

In this article, I’ll try to answer some of these questions and give you an introduction to PCMCIA, the little card with the huge standard. And what if you already have PCMCIA drivers installed on your system? Will they work with your new card? If you’re already tight on conventional memory, the idea of loading more drivers just to use the card probably isn’t appealing. Upon reading the manual, you’ll probably find that the disk contains some drivers to get your new card up and running. That’s funny, the ISA card that does the same job doesn’t come with software. Second, there is probably a software disk included with your new card. If PCMCIA is supposed to be “plug-and-play” technology, then how come you need to read a book to get it running?

If you’re unlucky enough to be installing an unusual PCMCIA card in your system - a network card for a proprietary industrial network, for instance - you may have a few more disappointments ahead before you’re up and running.įirst, it isn’t unusual for the manual of such a card to be thicker than the manual for the equivalent ISA bus card. Did you really pay several hundred dollars for this tiny thing?! It just doesn’t seem right! You have to be careful you don’t accidentally throw the card out with the packing material for the manual. In its place is a tiny, sturdy device about the size of a credit card, if a little bit thicker. Purchasing a PCMCIA card can be a disappointing experience: gone is the large green circuit board crisscrossed with hundreds of shiny foil traces and centipede-like black chips.

Note: The following article originally appeared in the January 1995 issue of the Visual Automation NewsDisk, a hypertext publication for the factory automation industry.

Generic pcmcia network card driver windows 7