Introduction - SeaLevel PC-SIO-850 User Manual

Introduction

Congratulations! You have now entered the world of mobile communications via the Sealevel Systems PC-
SIO-850 Serial Interface.
In the last few years, the portable and notebook market has grown by leaps and bounds. Most early laptops
and notebooks handled I/O expansion through proprietary expansion slots. These slots provided limited
expansion for specific peripherals such as modems and FAX peripherals. Mass storage peripherals were
factory installed and could not be easily changed. Interconnectivity through local area networks offered
limited performance through slow parallel port network interfaces.
During this time period two standards organizations, JEIDA, and PCMCIA, were working on the
standardization of memory IC cards. These cards were designed as strictly non-volatile silicon storage.
JEIDA was the first to propose the 68-pin connector standard for memory cards. In 1989, PCMCIA adopted
the JEIDA 68 pin standard and worked with JEIDA on further developments.
As the notebook market grew, the need for a standard I/O bus was seen. The PCMCIA groups saw an
opportunity to meet this need with an expanded version of the 68-pin interface. Further development
occurred and within one year, release 2.0 of the standard was completed. Release 2.0 was a major update
to Release 1.0 and included full hardware support for I/O devices. Release 2.0 coincided with JEIDA's 4.1
release and is identical.
The PC-SIO-850 continues the Sealevel Systems tradition of an easy to use, highly reliable, and technically
advanced serial I/O solution.
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© Sealevel Systems, Inc. 3604 Manual | SL9112 10/2022