RME Hammerfall HDSP Laptop PCMCIA Interface

For the Hammerfall DSP System RME recently developed this world-exclusive PCMCIA type II card with Zero wait state CardBus Busmaster technology. With up to 130 MB/s transfer rate in both directions, performance equals that of a desktop computer - with notebook convenience! The card offers the highest compatibility by being 100% Plug & Play-compatible under Windows and MacOS, and being able to share interrupts. The card itself will only use one interrupt (IRQ) for all functions (audio/MIDI.)

For some time now, laptops have become powerful enough for even ambitious hard disk recording thanks to high computing power and powerful hard drives. Up to now, a powerful interface was missing though. USB is neither offering the necessary bandwidth, nor the desired compatibility. Available PCMCIA solutions at the moment are nearly always designed as 16 bit PC Card and therefore only make use of the ISA bus.

The connection between CardBus card and I/O box is established using ordinary firewire cable (closed LAN to IEEE 1394.) The data transfer does not use Firewire protocol, but RME's own proprietary bus protocol. The supplied cable is 4.5 m (15 ft.) long, a cable length up to 10 m (33 ft.) has been successfully tested. A specially designed Repeater can be used to reach cable lengths of up to 20 m (66 ft.) The CardBus card does not provide power to the attached I/O-box. Therefore a hi-tech switching power supply is included.

Technical Info

PCMCIA type II, 32 bit CardBus card

Zero wait state PCI Busmaster interface (130 MB/s transfer rate in both directions)

Current Load: ca. 300 mA

Output: Closed LAN connector

Package Contents: PCMCIA type II card, cable 4.5 meter (15 ft) (Closed LAN to IEEE 1394), switching power supply 100 V-240 V/12 V - 1.25 A, card cable, battery cable