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Connect and use ISA and PCMCIA cards on Android tablet

1. Introduction

The presentation is for users wanting to connect one or more ISA cards and one PCMCIA card to an Android tablet.

There are 3 products which allow handling of ISA / PCMCIA peripheral cards - USB2ISA-R , USB2ISA-X3 , USB2PCMCIA .


There are important pre-requisites for a tablet to be able to handle our products together with peripheral cards:
- allow root access #
- has one or more USB host ports

For details please check - Software support allowing work of USB2ISA and USB2PCMCIA .

The image below show an Android tablet. Normally it comes with a cable (long one) to connect to a standard computer system. The specific tablet has a small cable which connects to the USB OTG port and provides a USB host port.

2. Connecting ISA and PCMCIA cards

The image below shows an Android tablet connected through cables to usb2isa-r, and one ISA card.

The image below shows a tablet connected through cables to usb2isa-x3, and 3 ISA cards.

The image below shows a tablet connected through cables to usb2pcmcia, and a PCMCIA card.


Order USB2ISA-R or USB2ISA-X3 or USB2PCMCIA

3. Choosing a power supply and an enclosure

There are the four voltages provided for use on the PCI bus: +5V , +12V , -12V, -5V. Full details on the ISA bus are available on - Wikipedia , and TechFest .

To find the voltages used by an ISA card, please check - ISA card - finding the voltages used .

There are 3 basic cases of powering -
- +5v only ISA card; powered through usb cable
- multiple voltages ISA card, low current used; powered using isa-pwr power supply module
- multiple voltages ISA card, high current used; powered using isa-pwr-xr external power supply

The pictures below show - usb2isa-r only, usb2isa-r + isa-pwr power supply module, and isa-pwr-xr external power supply on usb2isa-r -


The pictures below show - usb2isa-x3 only, usb2isa-x3 + isa-pwr power supply module, and isa-pwr-xr external power supply on usb2isa-x3 -


The images below show usb2isa-r placed in isa-pci-b1 with short ISA card, or isa-pci-b2 with long ISA card.

The pictures below show usb2isa-x3 placed in isa-x3-b1 with short ISA cards, or isa-x3-b2 with long ISA cards.


Most PCMCIA cards use either 3.3V or 5V power, with relatively low current so that they can be powered through the USB cable. There is a jumper to select either one or the other voltage.

The usb2pcmcia card also allows for a 3.3V (pwr-3v) or 5V (pwr-5v) external power supply to be connected and to power a high current PCMCIA card.

The usb2pcmcia card already comes with a plastic enclosure.

4. Use of ISA and PCMCIA cards on a tablet

We provide software support for developers to build an app to access ISA and PCMCIA cards on a tablet.

The ARSTech software support have 2 major components:
- arsenum-andr - enumerator; an executable binary designed to start and run on the tablet in a way as a system software;
- ArsCmdTst.apk - a standard Android app;

The first step is installing the software - included in the install software for USB2ISA-R, USB2ISA-x3, USB2PCMCIA.
The ArsCmdTst.apk Android app can be loaded from the Google play store - ArsCmdTst



We provide the source code of the app - developers can modify and use it with their specific ISA or PCMCIA cards.

In addition we have a description of the API set used by the app to access ISA or PCMCIA cards.

For details on - installing, work of the software components, API set, please check - Software support allowing work of USB2ISA and USB2PCMCIA .

Order USB2ISA-R or USB2ISA-X3 or USB2PCMCIA