Allegiance's USB PC card adapter

We've been waiting around a while for a USB PC card adapter (that wasn't $600), and you don't have to be a MacBook or MacBook Pro user to appreciate this little number -- you'd be surprised how many smaller machines these days come slot-free. Allegiance's notably shoddy looking adapter (shown right) purportedly supports a variety of Cingular, Sprint, and Verizon cards out of box, and for a surprisingly lean cost of $200. Too bad they're back-ordered into June (and too bad the box looks enormous), but hey, now you've got something if you couldn't Bluetooth DUN or tether your way into some wireless access.

[Via GottaBeMobile]

[Mike @ May 24th 2006 11:31AM]

I have never understood why these are this expensive. $20 for a good USB to compact flash, but $200 or more for a PC Card?

[John Laur @ May 24th 2006 11:50AM]

USB to CF adaptors are basically a little cheap 1 chip ATA controller and power is supplied to the card through a cheap regulator to take it down to 3.3V. They also gain the advantages of the economy of scale since there are so many more folks who need one of these than need a PC card slot.

USB to PC card adaptors must have a full USB->PCI bridge controller, Lecacy PCMCIA bridge, and a DCDC power supply to drive the various voltages that must be supplied to the cards.

Still $200 is a little bit steep seeing as you can get USB VGA adaptors which contain almost all of this stuff (and a VGA chip) for about $80.

[tekdemon @ May 24th 2006 12:22PM]

Err...wtf...weird thing is that I had a Lexar CF reader that came with this crazy PCMCIA adapter that you would then stick into this USB dock. And so one time I put a CF wifi card into the PCMCIA CF adapter then plugged it into the USB base to see if it would work and it did.
Admittedly I never tried an actual PCMCIA device but I always thought it would be equally simple and cheap...but I guess not huh?

[Fattie @ Mar 22nd 2008 9:01AM]

What model of reader was it? Where from?
Thanks

[Adam Solomon @ May 24th 2006 1:02PM]

This would be great for the Macbook, but there's no Mac drivers! Ugh.

[Scott @ May 24th 2006 1:40PM]

Am I missing something here? It seems that there is a USB equivilant for almost every PCMCIA card out there. Cellular cards are about the only exception I see, and at this cost, it might just be easier to connect your cell phone to a USB cable.

[Nate @ May 24th 2006 2:20PM]

You can pick one of these up at Sewell Direct for about $200, although it looks like they're backordered too.

http://sewelldirect.com/usb-to-pcmcia-wireless-adapter.asp

[wawa @ May 30th 2008 1:51PM]

rme isnt releasing updates for their pcmcia cardbus either (for the music people)
good lil thing :D !!!

where can i get it in mexico??!! :'( i need it so bad

regards

[max cascone @ May 24th 2006 8:10PM]

music-type people: since Echo apparently isn't planning on updating their Indigo cards for ExpressCard, i wonder if this would be an acceptable workaround?

[Gmo @ May 26th 2006 4:56PM]

I agree with Scott, a cell phone along with it's $25 USB cable would do the trick for me, and from the looks of it, is probably smaller too.

[Tom @ Jun 22nd 2006 8:12PM]

Why in the world would Cingular sell a 3g PCMCIA card for their wireless network but not a usb adapter for computers that do not have a slot for this. Think of the customers they don't have because of this

[Debi @ Mar 22nd 2007 1:16PM]

I have a sprint internet card for my laptop, and i upgraded to a nw laptop. Now my card doesnt fit and Sprint says I have to buy a new one. Isn't there an adapter that will fit?