Adrenochrome
08-23-2005, 03:26 PM
Could use some brainstormers on this one:
I've got a ten-year-old computer - a Compaq Contura Aero, which was a great little sub-notebook in its day. It's slow as hell now, but it's still useful as a word processor. I dug it up out of the basement the other day and started thinking about how I could use it with my LifeDrive. I do a lot of word processing on the LD, but sometimes it's nice to have a larger screen, so I'd love to be able to juggle documents between the Aero and the LD. Here's where it gets interesting.
The Aero is pre-USB, so no direct syncing is possible. I could use a serial converter, but that's sort of inelegant. The LD has Bluetooth, Wifi, IR, and an SD slot. The Aero has a serial (which will be taken by a mouse - built-in trackball sucks), parallel, and a PCMCIA slot. So, here are some ideas I've come up with. Note that I'm trying to do this on the cheap, since the computer itself is so darn old (it's black and white, has less ram that the LD, and it's hard drive is smaller than the LD!)
PCMCIA SD reader - could work, and would let me quickly swap documents back and forth. But do these work on Win95? Can the LD format be read by the Aero?
PCMCIA Wifi card - would work wonderfully with my wifi house, but my current wifi card won't fit into Type II PCMCIA slot. Not sure if it'll work with Win95 either. Won't be able to swap documents when away from home.
PCMCIA BT or IR card - might work, but might also be a pain to beam or send files.
Anybody have any nifty ideas?
I've got a ten-year-old computer - a Compaq Contura Aero, which was a great little sub-notebook in its day. It's slow as hell now, but it's still useful as a word processor. I dug it up out of the basement the other day and started thinking about how I could use it with my LifeDrive. I do a lot of word processing on the LD, but sometimes it's nice to have a larger screen, so I'd love to be able to juggle documents between the Aero and the LD. Here's where it gets interesting.
The Aero is pre-USB, so no direct syncing is possible. I could use a serial converter, but that's sort of inelegant. The LD has Bluetooth, Wifi, IR, and an SD slot. The Aero has a serial (which will be taken by a mouse - built-in trackball sucks), parallel, and a PCMCIA slot. So, here are some ideas I've come up with. Note that I'm trying to do this on the cheap, since the computer itself is so darn old (it's black and white, has less ram that the LD, and it's hard drive is smaller than the LD!)
PCMCIA SD reader - could work, and would let me quickly swap documents back and forth. But do these work on Win95? Can the LD format be read by the Aero?
PCMCIA Wifi card - would work wonderfully with my wifi house, but my current wifi card won't fit into Type II PCMCIA slot. Not sure if it'll work with Win95 either. Won't be able to swap documents when away from home.
PCMCIA BT or IR card - might work, but might also be a pain to beam or send files.
Anybody have any nifty ideas?