Customer Reviews

Inside PC Card: CardBus and PCMCIA Design (EDN Series for Design Engineers)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Considering the dearth of PC Card (known to some as PCMCIA, after the organization which publishes the standard), this book is better than nothing at all, but skates over the real details. For example, it fails to talk about 'specific enablers', and omits some key info regarding 'point enablers.' For a good overview article which addresses this and other topics regarding PC Card, take a look at http://www.execpc.com/~sunfish/pcmcia/. The book index omits key topics (try to find 'enablers', for example). I'm a software developer, and this book left me wanting to know more. A lot more. Until other books become available (as of this writing, I'm awaiting "PC Card : Pcmcia Software Developer's Handbook"), this book may be all there is, though. You might want to also check out the Microsoft Driver Developer Kits (DDKs - see http://www.microsoft.com/ddk) for info on this topic, although I've heard that they're pretty opaque. Also, to the Faisals: I know the writing of a book is a tough job, so please don't take this as an attack on your work. I'm glad to have anything at all at this point, but I just wish it had more that was useful to someone who's going to try to implement some software that has to deal with PC Cards.

Faisal Haque provides a good comprehensive introduction to PC Card and Cardbus suitable for software and hardware engineers. The text is well written and clear. Special emphasis is given to the differences between the various standards, with tables differentiating between PC Card 1.0, PC Card 2.0, PC Card 95, and Cardbus. This book supplements the PC Card standard (sold only by the PCMCIA standards body at the web site <http://www.pc-card.com>, as far as I can tell) and provides a very valuable explanation of that standard

I found this book easy to read the illustrations are good.
It emphasizes the design aspect. The only issue - it only covers PC Card 95. Does not have anything on updates to the standard beyond that.

This book is filled with errors, is hard to follow, and generally incomplete. However, with some effort, I was able to use the book, the best available, to complete the project. Glad I won't be needing it again though.

This book is replete with errors, both typographical and technical. The book is almost useless. His hardware examples have numerous errors, and his CIS examples have numerous errors. He often references figures and tables as XX and YY with no corresponding figure or table labeled as such. It is obvious he is neither a software nor a hardware engineer. This is the only book I've purchased in the EDN series for design engineers. I won't waste my money on any other EDN or Haque books.