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Show of hands now: You're taking your notebook on the road and you want (a) more or (b) fewer PC cards to carry? The OrangeCombo PC Card from Orange Micro (street price around $100)
neatly handles both your USB 2.0 and FireWire needs in a single card. It
provides two high-speed USB ports and one each of four- and six-pin FireWire
slots, which pretty much covers the likely load of external devices you are
likely to support with a portable computer. Orange Micro spokespeople say developing the card was no easy job, as the two technologies rely on entirely different chipsets and processes. Cramming both into the PC card format was no easy task. As a result of early production problems, availability is a little limited now, but can be expected to improve in the next few weeks. The card works fine, and Orange supplies drivers to enhance its operation (as compared with the generic drivers in Windows XP). An external hard drive, a Zip drive, and an iPod all worked without problem when I tested them. Alas, in making the road warrior's plight a little less complicated with the card, Orange seemed to have gone with a brick of a power brick. It's huge and an annoyance to fit in a portable PC case. You need the power supply because if you have multiple devices attached to the card that are drawing current from it, that will overtax the PC card bus. But if you only expect to use one device at a time, you probably can leave the brick at home. Meanwhile, in the desktop arena, I earlier wrote about how some of my recommended combo cards had been discontinued. A couple of replacements have surfaced,
It's internal connection is for FireWire only, making it best suited for use with PCs or cases like my Antec where there are front panel ports that take high-speed USB from the motherboard and from an add-on card for FireWire. The only downside of either PCI card is that, well, they are
PCI cards. Since the beginning of time (i.e., the launch of the IBM PC),
peripheral cards have been designed so that the ports are in the back. This
arrangement was fine in the days when you attached your external peripherals
to your PC and pretty much left them there, but is terrible for today's
plug-and-play USB and FireWire devices. A stopgap approach might be for peripheral card-makers to offer port bays that fit into empty drive bays and connect up to the expansion card via internal cable. Orange Micro does this now for one of its USB 2.0 cards, but not the Combo. An even better idea would be for computer manufacturers to redesign their chassis so that one or more expansion slots open to the front so that plug-and-play connections are conveniently located for users. Convenience and PC design, now that would be a novel concept. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ You can reach Al Gordon at:  Return to Top
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This is supplemental information to the article:
One is from Orange Micro, the
