no pcmcia slot in new laptop

[mel]

Just got a new dell laptop delivered and i will admit I hadn't checked it would have a pcmcia card slot before I ordered it as I "assumed" they were standard in all laptops. Any way it hasn't, it's got what looks like the right sized slot but is aparantly a PCI express card slot which are meant to be replacing PCMCIA at some stage in the future, however in the mean time I'm buggered as my orange 3G is PCMCIA and orange have got no idea when cards will be out in this new format that I'd never heard of until today.

I've tried Dell tech support who say "it's a straght forward adaptor avaliable in any pc shop, but we're back ordered at the moment" alas Maplin and PC world both looked at me blankly and said "we've got nothing that will do that" I need an adapter that will plug into either usb (got loads of them) or firewire and then enable me to plug in my 3G PCMCIA card. Any ideas???

[ATG]

FWIW, looks like these things do exist ... www.everythingusb.com/elan_u111_usb_card_reader.html

[mattley]

I think it'll have to be USB, as the form factor, addressing and power specs and most importantly, the driver architecture, are all very different.