The Trans PC Card - Universal Parallel Port for 100LX and 200LX Palmtops

Slip this parallel port PC Card into your palmtop and connect directly to parallel printers, Zip drives, CD-ROMs and other devices, as well as transfer files quickly to and from PCs running Win3.x or Windows 95.

By Ralph C. Turner

Although you can connect a serial cable between the palmtop and a serial printer, most printers have only a parallel port. Consequently, one of the easiest way to expend the usfulness of your palmtop is to purchase a parallel port card.

Trans PC Card - Universal Parallel Port
The Trans PC Card - Universal Parallel Port, from Trans Digital Corporation, is a Type I PC Card, which means that it can be used not only with 100/200LXs, but also by Notebook PCs and other devices with PCMCIA slots.
In addition to allowing you to connect your palmtop to a parallel printer, the Trans PC Card - Universal Parallel Port provides connectivity to Iomega's 100Mb Zip drive, CD-ROMs, scanners, digital cameras, and tapes, as well as hard, floppy and removable media drives. (For a device to work with the card, the device must have a driver which can work with DOS 5).
The power draw of the card is only 5mA in standby; the draw is 5-10mA during transfer between PCs, driving the Iomega Zip drive, and during printing to a Pentax PocketJet printer.
Because of the low power consumption, you can insert or remove the card from the palmtop without having to turn off the computer. Once you insert the card, it becomes drive A:.
A program on the card automatically configures the card once it is inserted into the palmtop. No hard (or soft) booting of the palmtop is required. The card allows for printing from system manager applications (or from DOS) to LPT1, LPT2, LPT3 or COM1.
The card also provides a fast way to transfer files (via provided parallel cable) from the palmtop to a PC running DOS, Windows 3.x or Windows 95. Such transfers are implemented by using programs that are provided on the card itself. Because the file transfer is over parallel cable, it is very fast:30KB per second which is about 60 times faster than other connectivity methods which use a serial cable.
The Trans PC Card - Universal Parallel Port is priced at $179.

The Palmtop Paper - PC Card Review 1998.