This reminds me of the EOMA68 project[1], which was seeking to use the same connectors to build systems where you simply swapped out compute cards when they got old and slow, saving on e-waste. I mostly like the idea of having the option to swap between a 'light' ARM processor board for general browsing, and a beefy x86 + GPU board for CAD work. With the dawn of PCIe being used for SD card data transfer, I think that even an unmodified reissue would work out quite well.
[1] https://elinux.org/Embedded_Open_Modular_Architecture/EOMA68
PCMCIA: People Can't Memorize Computer Industry Acronyms
God, I remember how god awful the form factor was, but it was pretty nice to be able to retrofit Wi-Fi or cellular modems to laptops without Wi-Fi built in. There was a time when built in wasn’t even an option.
Much better times. This form factor lasted for many many years. Now everything's a stupid bump sticking out of a USB port.
The only PCMCIA cards I ever used were flash memory (direct flash and SATA drives), modems, and Ethernet adapters, and I only had them because I was writing drivers. (At the time laptops were expensive and not every employee had one.) Built-in modems, docking stations, and serial-port (sub-d9) zipdrives eventually did away with PCMCIA cards. Thankfully, because they were a terrible form factor and took a ton of space inside a crammed laptop.
Ah, this takes me back. My first WiFi card, used for Napster (or similar) and playing Quake in class via the schools brand new wifi. Or all the adapters for USB 2.0, CF and SD cards. And of course the iomega Clik! drive they gave away as a promo, including one clik "disc" (40MB ircc) - that stayed true to its name and started to produce the "click of death" only weeks after I got it. fun times!
It would be nice to still have this level of expandability on new laptops but then again, apart from retro projects I never really needed anything like it for a long while now, so I guess its understandable they dropped it.
It is a useful standard - plastic PCMCIA card protectors make good card wallets.
Looks the organization dissolved in 2009 and had its activities taken over by the USB Implementers Forum: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_Computer_Memory_Card_...