RANT: Do not call them PCMCIA Cards (was "An interesting eBay

[Fred Cisin]

On Wed, 15 Jul 2009, Barry Watzman wrote:
> The correct name for what you are [incorrectly] calling a "PCMCIA Card" is a
> "PC Card".  PCMCIA is the name of the organization that owns the trademarks
> and they changed the name of the CARDS from "PCMCIA cards" to "PC Cards"

They can TRY.
1) I have some cards that predate their attempt to change the name.
2) "PC Card" is an unacceptably bad choice for a new name, since SOME use
"PC cards" to refer to any ISA board.
3) "PCMCIA" doesn't need to be broken down into its component parts and
then skip some of them.  It originally was trademarked as "Personal
Computer Memory Card Industry Association", and "PCMCIA Cards" was, and
therefore STILL IS, a valid name for them.
4)  If you really believe that some industry association can
retro-actively change the name, then consider "PCMCIA" to mean "People
Can't Memorize Computer Industry Acronyms".

> more than a decade ago (early 1990's), but people just won't let go.
. . . and just who has the authority to DEMAND such a change?
I'll "let go" when they pry them from my cold dead hands.


> "MC" in PCMCIA stands for "Memory Card", which was [ALL] that they were when
> they came into existence, but that hasn't been the primary use of these
> cards in almost 20 years.  And the "A" stands for "Association".  Neither is
> appropriate to the cards themselves as they are used today, and "PCMCIA
> Card" is not in accord with the organization's registered trademarks [They
> own both the standard and the trademarks, they get to decide the "right"
> names for them.]

Sure.   "right".
The component parts are largely irrelevant.  A card that complied with the
specs from the Personal Computer Memory Card Industry Association, even if
it was NOT a memory card, was validly a "PCMCIA card".  The company that
trademarked, etc. was NAMED "PCMCIA", and it is irrelevant that those
cards began to encompass some non-memory functions.
"AT&T" ("American Telephone and Telegraph") is a company name, even if the
specific product is neither "telephone" nor "telegraph".


Once a given item has a name, NOBODY has the power to FORCE a rename.
If I have a "Heathkit", "Thinker Toys", "Kentucky Fried Computers",
"Shugart TECHNOLOGY", "Tandy", "Radio Shack", "VTOS" item, I
can and will continue to call it by its name, regardless of what
the current name is of the company that made or named it.

--
Grumpy Ol' Fred     		cisin at xenosoft.com