HACKER Q&A
📣 hkt

Can the old ExpressCard spec for laptops be revived for new products?


The context here is that I recently bought a thinkpad x230t from 2012 or so and I've fallen in love with it. I like the cheap RAM (16gb for £20), the serviceability, and the idea of being able to add new bits of functionality through the ExpressCard slot.

What I'm wondering is whether or not anyone else has thought about producing new expresscard products that would be compatible with older laptops, but would update their functionality. Examples of this might be a LoRa and ZigBee module, TPU/NPU, FPGAs or things of that nature. In other words, expansions that were probably unlikely to

I'm still pretty new to this, but since ExpressCard seems to (effectively) just plug straight into a USB or PCI bus, is there likely to be any real difficulty in creating new products based upon it?

(I've no doubt this would be niche, but I'm thinking of things like crowdsupply, tindie, etc as probable outlets.)


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