| PCMCIA
This serious mouthful of acronym stands for the name of a trade
association founded in 1989 to establish standards for expansion cards for
portable computers. Based in Sunnyvale, California, the PCMCIA's
specifications for the PC Card enabled the computer industry to
manufacture credit-card-sized removable cards to add RAM, modems, network
adapters, hard disks, and even radio devices like pagers and global
positioning systems to portable computers. Many people call PC Cards by
the longer name PCMCIA cards. The association has trademarked the term PC
Card, however, so that's the preferred usage. |