Synchrotech's ExpressAdapt Shines on PowerBook G3 Pismo

PCIe (PCI Express) based FarSync X.25 Adapters for Linux and Windows

FarSite's FarSync X.25 adapter line now includes PCIe based products for modern motherboards. The T4Ue and T2Ue provide the same high performance and high reliability X.25 connectivity for 32 and 64 bit Linux, Windows XP, Server 2003, and The Vista on a PCI Express host adapter as FarSite's other T-Series adapters. The PCIe to X.25 host adapters come with FarSite's extensive APIs and SDK. The four port T4Ue is available now, and the two port T2Ue will be available soon.

Performance PCIe based RS-422/RS-485 Serial ExpressCards

Synchrotech is now offering Quatech's 1, 2, and 4 port PCIe based ExpressCard to RS-422 and RS-485 Serial host adapters. Advantages of a PCIe-based ExpressCard design are in the interface to the laptop's motherboard. The PCIe bus interface is the successor to the PCI bus, which in turn was the successor to the ISA bus to which built-in serial ports were originally attached. As such, the ExpressCard adapter design utilizes a PCIe-based design and can still directly use I/O space addresses and interrupts, thus more closely emulating built-in ports than can be done via USB-based design. Moreover, because there's no USB stack for the drivers to contend with, throughput can be higher and latency will be lower (considerably so in many cases). Due to improved data transfer rate, the ExpressCard is considerably more efficient for multi-tasking operations.

New FAQ: Considerations for Ratoc's FireWire and USB 2.0 to SCSI Adapters

Recently there has been a shift in interest from internal SCSI host adapters SCSI host adapters utilizing external busses like high performance FireWire and prosaic USB. While Ratoc's FireWire and USB to SCSI adapters have been on the market for quite some time, they are beginning to grow in popularity since they are an inexpensive and accessible way to work with older SCSI devices. This FAQ document is intended to clear up some of the confusion over deploying Ratoc adapters with SCSI devices.

Covered in the FAQ: matching SCSI connector types, Term Power and other power considerations, SCSI converter adapters, and links to compatibility lists.

September 2008 Synchrotech Specials

Sale: 5% off DuelAdapter
5% off EXP34-DA-001 ExpressCard 34 to PCMCIA PC Card and CardBus Read-Writer DuelAdapter 1 Slot offer expires 09/30/2008.

Sale: MicroU2E-MV with FREE AirQueue
Buy a MicroU2E-MV USB 2.0 to USB Mode ExpressCard 34|54 Multi-Voltage Host Adapter and get a free AirQueue USB 2.0 A (Male) to A (Female) Extender Cable offer expires 09/30/2008, limit 5 per customer.

Sale: MicroU2E-MV with FREE DoubleQueue
Buy a MicroU2E-MV USB 2.0 to USB Mode ExpressCard 34|54 Multi-Voltage Host Adapter and get a free DoubleQueue USB 2.0 A+A (Power) to A (Female) Y Extender Cable offer expires 09/30/2008, limit 5 per customer.

Sale: MicroU2E with FREE AirQueue
Buy a MicroU2E USB 2.0 to USB 2.0 Mode ExpressCard 34|54 Host Adapter and get a free AirQueue USB 2.0 A (Male) to A (Female) Extender Cable offer expires 09/30/2008, limit 5 per customer.

Sale: MicroU2E with FREE DoubleQueue
Buy a MicroU2E USB 2.0 to USB 2.0 Mode ExpressCard 34|54 Host Adapter and get a free DoubleQueue USB 2.0 A+A (Power) to A (Female) Y Extender Cable offer expires 09/30/2008, limit 5 per customer.

ExpressAdapt PCMCIA PC CardBus to USB Mode ExpressCard Adapter

ExpressAdapt CardBus to ExpressCard

ExpressAdapt represents the second generation of CardBus to ExpressCard adapters, combining benefits of previous generation 16-bit and 32-bit adapters. Integrating the latest NEC ECOUSB™ controller with Synchrotech's advanced voltage regulating circuitry gives ExpressAdapt major advantages over competing devices. Utilizing ECOUSB™ provides ExpressAdapt with significant compatibility and performance features. First ExpressAdapt needs no drivers on contemporary mainstream operating systems, it is recognized and supported automatically. Second, it harnesses the fastest USB 2.0 throughput to complement the latest HSDPA and EVDO Rev. A ExpressCards. Lastly, ExpressAdapt's integrated controller allows for low power consumption and price.

ExpressAdapt overcomes power considerations of earlier 32-bit PC CardBus adapters providing 1000mA at 3.3V and 650mA at 1.5V. With the ability to supply power on both ExpressCard rails, newer cards like the Option Wireless GT Max 3.6 Express are fully supported. Crafted with the highest quality connectors and frame materials, ExpressAdapt meets or exceeds the requirements of every standards body it falls under.

ExpressAdapt is a PCMCIA PC CardBus to USB ExpressCard Adapter. It works with USB 2.0 Mode ExpressCards only. This includes WWAN Wireless broadband cards like the Kyocera KPC680 and the Sierra Wireless AC597E. Like all PC Card to ExpressCard adapters, ExpressAdapt does NOT work with PCIe based ExpressCards. ExpressCards using the PCI Express (PCIe) portion of the ExpressCard standard include very high performance devices like FireWire 800 and eSATA host adapters.

CradlePoint CTR500 Cellular Travel Router for WWAN 3G/4G to

The CradlePoint CTR500 Cellular Travel Router creates a secure Wi-Fi Hotspot from broadband enabled cellular data modems. The CTR500 is the world's most compact router that is able to support Both ExpressCard and USB-style Cellular Modems. Powered by CradlePoint's WiPipe™ technology, it supports a wide variety of modems and handsets on the ATT, Verizon, Sprint, and Alltel networks and gives users hassle-free Wi-Fi access nearly anywhere. Pictured here with WWAN wireless mobile broadband ExpressCards. Synchrotech.

RS-530, EIA-530 (RS530, EIA530) Connector / Signaling Standard

AirQueue USB 2.0 Extension with MicroU2E and ExpressCard for MacBook Air

AirQueue
Originally uploaded by Synchrotech

AirQueue USB 2.0 Extension with MicroU2E-MV/MicroU2E to enable USB 2.0 ExpressCards with the MacBook Air. AirQueue USB 2.0 A (Male) to A (Female) Extender Cable 19cm/.62F. Avoid damage to MacBook Air USB port and allows use of MicroU2E ExpressCard Adapter pictured here with a 3G/4G (EVDO) WWAN Wireless broadband card. Synchrotech.

FarLinX X.25 Gateway X.25 to XOT and X.25 to TCP/IP Appliances

Special Holiday Offer for MicroU2E-MV

For three days only, purchase a MicroU2E-MV USB to ExpressCard adapter and get the specialty cable of your choice absolutely free! Choose from either the DoubleQueue cable for supplementing MicroU2E-MV power in areas with low WWAN signals, or the AirQueue cable to use the MicroU2E-MV with slot-less notebook PCs, the MacBook Air, and MacBooks. This special offer is for three days only, for orders placed July 4, 5, or 6 2008 (PST) and there is a limit 5 specials per customer.

MicroU2E-MV accepts 1.5V ExpressCards like the range of Option Wireless WWAN mobile broadband devices popular with AT&T and on European networks. The 3.3 and 1.5V multi-voltage capability of the MicroU2E-MV makes it unique among USB to ExpressCard adapters. The cross-platform MicroU2E-MV enables USB based ExpressCards like the latest generation of 3G WWAN wireless devices on slot-less PC notebooks, Apple MacBooks, and the MacBook Air. AirQueue allows use of the MicroU2E-MV or USB devices with large or unusually designed connectors with MacBook Air! DoubleQueue is an extender with option of drawing current from second USB Port for MicroU2E-MV.

July 2008 Sales and Specials

New MicroU2E-MV Supports Wider Range of ExpressCards

Note from Elan regarding their new USBScope50 Java based software

USBscope50
Originally uploaded by Synchrotech

I wanted to let you know about the new software we have released for the USBscope50 unit. This is Java software, and so will work on more platforms (Linux and Windows at the moment, Mac OS X to follow)

You can download the latest software from here:
http://www.elandigitalsystems.com/support/usbtmfaq/software.php

There are some customers who will try the software out and once we have had a chance to review their feedback we will start including this software on the CD that ships with the measurement products. We plan to extend it to support the other models in the range as well.

If you or your technical guys or any of your customers have any comments, we'd love to hear them. (Like the current software, this software will run in demo mode if no scope is plugged in)

10 Meter Full Throughput FireWire 800 and FireWire 400 Cables

FireWire 800 and FireWire 400 Cables
Originally uploaded by Synchrotech

10 Meter FireWire 800 9pin to 9pin Cable
Our FireWire 800 IEEE1394b 9pin to 9pin Cable UB 10M/32.8F are perfect for those needing extended FireWire 800 cable runs. Utilizing the highest quality control in shielding and insulation, these cables feature consistent 110 Ohm impedance, and high performance in terms of skew, attenuation and crosstalk. Such attention to detail allows full 800Mbps transmission speeds over 10 meter (32.8 foot) cables, perfect for many broadcast and production environments.

10 Meter FireWire 800 9pin to 6pin Cable
Our FireWire 800 IEEE1394b 9pin to 6pin Cable UB 10M/32.8F are perfect for those needing extended FireWire 800/400 cable runs. Utilizing the highest quality control in shielding and insulation, these cables feature consistent 110 Ohm impedance, and high performance in terms of skew, attenuation and crosstalk. Such attention to detail allows full 400Mbps transmission speeds over 10 meter (32.8 foot) cables, perfect for many broadcast and production environments.

10 Meter FireWire 400 6pin to 6pin Cable
Our FireWire 400 IEEE1394b 6pin to 6pin Cable UB 10M/32.8F are perfect for those needing extended FireWire 400 cable runs. Utilizing the highest quality control in shielding and insulation, these cables feature consistent 110 Ohm impedance, and high performance in terms of skew, attenuation and crosstalk. Such attention to detail allows full 400Mbps transmission speeds over 10 meter (32.8 foot) cables, perfect for many broadcast and production environments.

10 Meter FireWire 400 6pin to 4pin Cable
Our FireWire 400 IEEE1394b 6pin to 4pin Cable UB 10M/32.8F are perfect for those needing extended FireWire 400 cable runs. Utilizing the highest quality control in shielding and insulation, these cables feature consistent 110 Ohm impedance, and high performance in terms of skew, attenuation and crosstalk. Such attention to detail allows full 400Mbps transmission speeds over 10 meter (32.8 foot) cables, perfect for many broadcast and production environments.

June 2008 Sales and Specials

MicroU2E and MicroU2E-MV ExpressCard Adapter Compatibility Table

AirQueue/MicroU2E/KPC680
Originally uploaded by Synchrotech

USB 2.0 to USB Mode ExpressCard Adapters only work with ExpressCard 34 devices utilizing the USB 2.0 portion of the ExpressCard specification. They will not work with and ExpressCard 54 device, or any ExpressCard utilizing the PCIe (PCI Express) portion of the ExpressCard specification. The new MicroU2E-MV adds support for ExpressCards utilizing both 3.3 and 1.5V portions of the ExpressCard standard, while the original MicroU2E supports 3.3V only. The following table is by no means comprehensive, nor guaranteed completely accurate.

WWAN Wireless Cards

MicroU2E and MicroU2E-MV
Kyocera KPC680 EV-DO Rev. A (Verizon)
Novatel Wireless Merlin XU870
Novatel Wireless Merlin EX720 (Sprint)
Novatel Wireless Merlin V740 (Verizon)
Novatel Wireless Merlin V740 (Verizon)
Sierra Wireless Air Card 597E (Sprint)

MicroU2E-MV Only
Option Wireless GT Max 3.6 Express (AT&T)
Option Wireless Option GT Ultra Express (AT&T)
Option Wireless GlobeTrotter Express 7.2 Web'n'Walk (T-Mobile)
Option Wireless GlobeTrotter Express HSUPA
Option Wireless GlobeTrotter Express 401

Full Device Support Documents
USB ExpressCards Supported by MicroU2E and MicroU2E-MV (HTML)
USB ExpressCards Supported by MicroU2E and MicroU2E-MV (scribd)

FireRepeater 800 Pro FireWire 800 IEEE 1394b Repeater Hub 4 Port

FireRepeater 800 Pro
Originally uploaded by Synchrotech

Unibrain's 4 Port Repeater Hub provides port expansion on FireWire® 800 IEEE 1394b device chains. Oriented towards industrial and machine vision applications, FireRepeater-800 PRO™ provides the ability to connect up to four FireWire 1394b devices and it's metallic compact case minimizes the risk of physical damage. The platform agnostic device provides four 9 pin (bilingual) IEEE 1394b ports with a maximum throughput of up to 800 Mbps each. The Hub utilizes IEEE 1394b bus power, or accepts an optional power adapter for use with devices requiring more power. Repeater hubs provide bus flexibility in that they allow for daisy chaining and/or hierarchical (tree) bus configurations. Repeater hubs also provide a means to lengthen the distance between devices when 1394's cable length of 4.5 meters (15 feet) is inadequate. Simply daisy chain repeaters between cables to extend your reach to 110m. FireRepeater 800 Pro incorporates locking 9 pin bilingual ports, multiple mounting points and an optional metal bracket to ensure an even more secure physical connection.

FireRepeater 800 Pro FireWire 800 IEEE 1394b Repeater Hub 4 Port

Modern UDMA CompactFlash Reader Benchmarks FireWire vs. USB 2.0

May 2008 Specials and Sales

Hot swapping PCIe based ExpressCards with PCIe to ExpressCard Drives

This is intended to address questions regarding PCIe to ExpressCard readers. The PCI-Express (PCIe) specification allows for hot-swapping of PCIe devices. Since ExpressCard is simply PCIe and USB with different connectors, it would follow that PCIe to ExpressCard adapters should inherit such behavior when installed in computers with PCIe slots. Unfortunately this isn't always the case. A system's BIOS (or firmware) and the host operating system need to treat an PCIe slot as having hot-swap capability. This behavior is taken for granted on notebook computers. When PCIe to ExpressCard drives were released, manufacturers assumed host systems would treat them the same.

Most desktop machines are not setup to hot swap on their PCIe slots. At first operating system vendors blamed BIOS makers for the problem, but recent developments seem to indicate it is not only the BIOS makers to blame. Synchrotech learned this with a desktop machine with a PCIe to ExpressCard drive (EXP54-CR-PCEIR1) installed. When the drive wouldn't hot-swap under The Windows Xp, Synchrotech was told the BIOS was to blame. However, with the release of OpenBSD 4.3, our tests showed the PCIe to ExpressCard drive could hot-swap PCIe based ExpressCards without any modifications to the system's BIOS. Our conclusion is it is a combination of both the BIOS and operating system. Synchrotech is working hard to get operating system and BIOS vendors to rectify this problem. Currrently, many systems require booting with a PCIe based ExpressCard in the ExpressCard slot in order to have the card recognized.

For More Information

• Firmware Support for PCI Express Hot-Plug and Windows
• ExpressCard FAQ for ExpressCard 34 and ExpressCard 54

Possible Work Around Procedures

• With The Windows Xp, many end users have reported that after inserting a PCIe based ExpressCard into a PCIe to ExpressCard drive they can evoke the 'scan for new hardware' command in the 'device manager' resulting in the ExpressCard being recognized. These finding have been confirmed by Synchrotech (with the test system mentioned above). However, we also have reports of this not working with all systems.
• With The Vista version of The Windows, Synchrotech hasn't obtained any information whether it behaves like The Windows Xp.
• We currently have no solution for Mac OS X, although we would be happy to find a solution for PCIe based Mac desktops quickly. Because of the superior quality of Final Cut Pro and Mac OS X, we have had many video professionals wanting to use Sony/Sandisk's SxS ExpressCards with our PCIe to ExpressCard Drive.
• For OpenBSD, upgrading to version 4.3 seems to enable PCIe to ExpressCard hot-swap.

CFMulti Provides CompactFlash Connectivity to Eye-Fi, SDHC, and MMC

CFMulti allows CompactFlash Type II slotted digital cameras to utilize WiFi via Eye-Fi(TM) SD Cards for wireless transfer of photos. Most high end DSLR and late model midrange digital cameras feature CompactFlash slots. CFMulti allows such cameras to use the wireless capability of Eye-Fi(TM) Cards, while still allowing switching back to UDMA CompactFlash when high performance is more important than wireless. CFMulti also allows the use of popular SDHC, SD Cards, MMC +Plus, and MultiMediaCards in place of CompactFlash.

PCI to PC Card(Bus) Bridge Chips in Select PCMCIA PC Card Readers

Elan Lowers Pricing on USB Test, Measurement and Scope Products

G-Tech G|Drive mini FireWire and USB Hard Drives

G|Drive mini hard drives are the ideal storage solutions for people on the go. Weighing less than 9 oz., G|Drive mini is the ultra-portable way to travel with up to 250 GB of storage space for your important documents, MP3s, digital video and digital photo files. G|Drive mini is bus powered when used with FireWire connections, eliminating the need to carry external AC power supplies. G|Drive mini features the latest hot-pluggable FireWire and USB interfaces to provide industry leading performance and universal connectivity.

G-DRIVE mini Triple FireWire 400/800/USB Hard Drives features screaming fast FireWire 800, fast FireWire 400, and ubiquitous USB 2.0 connections. G-DRIVE mini Combo FireWire 400/USB Hard Drives have fast FireWire 400, and ubiquitous USB 2.0 ports. G-DRIVE mini is available in 160, 200, and 250GB 5400 RPM configurations, or choose the 200GB 7200 RPM for optimal performance.

G-Tech G-DRIVE mini Triple FireWire 400/800/USB Hard Drives

G-Tech G|Drive mini Combo FireWire 400/USB Hard Drives