@JacobFavreault These are actually all things that I’d use!
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The problem with that is that these are BIOS/firmware integrated (i.e. they have to work when the USB and whatever is switched off), so we can’t really just have it stick over a port and expect it to work.
We did pay quite a premium, so if this feature is to arrive (as a feature built-in to the device and not a card), I will be very happy about it.
And you can put them anywhere. On the bottom, sides, chin … even on top of the palmrest.
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That is probably true, however I have seen UEFI systems that have parallel, serial, and PCI slots (example: https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/B350-TOMAHAWK/Gallery) maybe not with the same low level controls, however they are low-level enough to work on MSDOS 4.0 (my motherboard has an “true” rs232 header that I use, it allows me to choose irq and address in BIOS. I was also to use to the port for interlink in an unmodified MSDOS install, so the compatibility is pretty good, this board is from 2018 and uses UEFI)
I agree that there probably couldn’t be the same level of control as on old hardware, but I think it would be possible to get it good enough for 99.9% of applications using LPC (if I remember right, operating systems see LPC basically the same as ISA) There are even some relatively modern industrial motherboard that use bridge chips to offer ISA slots (example: ATX with 7th/6th Gen Intel® Kaby Lake/Skylake Core™ i7/i5/ i3, Pentium®, Celeron® Processor & Intel® H110 for Mainstream with ISA Solution). This may be harder in a laptop, but I reckon a card that routed to LPC with a large external box to handle all the bridge chips and stuff may be able to work.
However, I am unsure about floppy headers, since I don’t think I have seen a single UEFI motherboard to offer one (I think the last ones were 2010)
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A 4G LTE card would be great, ideally with support for bands 2, 4, 5, 12, 13, 66, and 71. Bonus points for bands 46 and 48. Add in bands 3, 7, and 20 for Europe or bands 3, 40, and 41 for Asia. It would be cheapest to scale a card that just supports all global bands, like Samsung phones do, but selling region-specific cards might make more sense given the size of the modules.
If it can be done in a smartwatch, it can be done here.
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Hear Me Out... Point to Point Wireless Display Adapter(s)
It would be super nice to be able to just slide in an expansion card and my laptop just connects to my TV as an external display. You would obviously need more than just the expansion card itself, i.e. an HDMI wireless dongle to plug into the target device but that can be packaged and sold with the expansion card or perhaps it can be designed to connect to an already existent, easily accessible, adapter.
I think point to point like some Logitech dongles or Bluetooth would be better than just connecting to your Wi-Fi so that there is no set up and much less bandwidth issues. It may seem stupid but I would honestly use this every day and this could be so handy in a business environment. You come into a meeting and just plug the dongle into the back of the display in the office and you have control over the display for presentations or cat videos.
Perhaps you can connect multiple dongles that can switch between so that you can put one in different rooms where you have TV’s and when you move to a different room you just press a button on the expansion card and it switches to the closest one or even just the next on in the list if there is maybe LED’s on the expansion card to show what one is being connected.
Some software could even be designed if it doesn’t exist already to black the screen and show the screen when you want and other useful features that may not be in your operating system of choice.
I would absolutely love this ability. I’m sure there are ways to do this with other software and devices and a lot of effort but to have a first party one that just is part of my laptop via an expansion card would be great. Bonus points if there is the ability to have a port on the expansion card too like USB-C even if its only for charging. Not saying that is possible, I personally don’t know because these expansion cards are super small but one can dream.
Maybe it’s dumb but I think it would be awesome.
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I have messed around with it in the past to try and do something similar but no matter what I did it was always finicky and could not get it to work properly. That could have been the hardware/software I was running on my old workstation. Maybe its time to give it another go.
Regardless, I still think this plug and play solution may be more reliable and easy for people to use.
The problem with floppy is that it’s designed in a era where IDE (kinda a parallel port) is the go-to for connecting drives to the
system. Since by the time those started fade out any floppy is basically cheap collectibles SATA ones are never made.
You can get a SATA to IDE active adapter plate and maybe get things to work. But the best bet is to find a relatively modern old system with such a header.
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I’m not sure what their 3rd party program is like, but a Tile integration could be really nice.
Ideally, if you could also hijack the computer speakers instead of relying on a tiny internal thing that would be really cool.
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Ok now that has me thinking. Is there enough space inside the laptop case for an Apple AirTag or a Tile to fit inside?
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Don’t have mine to test but I’m not sure I’d risk it because of the unexpected side effects it could have on heat management even if it did fit. I’d want to see a lot of testing on what that looks like before I’d try it 
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Floppies are actually very different from IDE, floppies long predate IDE (floppies use a 34 pin connector and IDE is 40 pin) On an IDE hard drive the ATAPI protocol is being used to send data to drive, then logic on the drive is determining how the data is going to be stored and what the heads are doing. (this is why IDE/SATA can support both HDD and SSD, since the drive is doing its own low level logic) On a floppy however, the controller chip (FDC) is on the motherboard/controller card and sending low level commands to the drive, commands such as “motor on”, and “head step”. (Floppy drives them selves are little or no internal logic and are really just some motors and read/write head relying on control from and FDC to be of any use). So long story short: IDE ≠ Floppy
FDC chips have only ever been made using the ISA or LPC bus, there is no way to mimic the capabilities of one over PCIe, PCI, or USB (USB allows for 3.5 drives, but not 5.25 or 8) Therefore since LPC is still on modern CPUs and PCI->ISA bridge chips exist, it would be possible (I think) to implement floppy on to a modern computer (like the framework assuming there was a route to PCI or LPC
the fact that they are not IDE is in some ways better, since IDE relies on the chipset (and as you said, no more IDE on chipsets) floppies rely on a discrete chip (often Super i/o) meaning it theoretically could be implemented into almost any system.
And Sata->IDE adapter would not work because of the above mentioned description
*sorry if my description of the differences was a bit bad, hopefully you got the idea.
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And opticals.
there is adapters that convert a SATA “input” (from motherboard) to IDE (for the drive).
Interesting. And as you said, supposedly all the floppy use the same interface so if we have USB one for 3.5 inch then it’s also possible for us to have USB ones for 5.25 inch
Like this “greazeweasle” monstrosity.
If the drive need more power (e.g. 12V), we can just provide that externally. I have a 3.5 inch HDD bay with a external power adapter. Because of so I turned off windows data cache because the drive does not depend on windows for power.
But I think there is little reason to have this discussion here – it have to do with legacy protocols and devices that use said protocols. As most modern systems are no longer using said protocol we need to use some form of bridge chip/controller, I suppose.
I would not say I am fully qualified to explain this, but it comes down to the fact that the FDC needs to operate differently based on type of drive. (remember how you would used to have to manually select floppy drive size is BIOS) the USB floppy spec (by USBIF) was only ever built to support 3.5 drives. Because 5.25 drives require different commands and send/receive data at different speeds, there is no way for USB to support it natively. Support for 5.25 would have to be added into the USB floppy spec. (and I think USBIF has more important things to worry about that compatibility with 40 year old storage tech)
this uses custom logic and does not use the USB floppy spec. Because of this is does not operate the same way a true floppy would
You are mostly right, although it does have to do with expansion cards in some way. I think to sum this up: if framework wanted to add BIOS support and have LPC bus routed to one of the expansion ports then it may be possible to make.
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I’d personally love to have an expansion card which is fully compatible with Apple’s new MagSafe 3.
Same connector, so I can connect the same cable to both a MacBook Pro and the Framework.
Would be nice to have strong magnets in it too, like in the MBP.
I get that it probably would be an expensive expansion card, but I’d pay the premium to have such a port on my Framework 
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I’ve seen similar things asked for, but I’d like to see the insides of a Tile or something similar pushed into the chassis of an expansion card.
I don’t want it to connect to the internal Thunderbolt port at all. I don’t want the laptop to be aware of the card, or the card to be aware of the laptop. I could set up a profile telling the 3rd party that I’ve connected it to the keys of a riding lawnmower for all they know. (This also has the unintended benefit that drivers will never be an issue, and will never even have to be developed.)
But then when I am standing in the kitchen wondering what the last room was that I was using the laptop, I could just open up the app. Likewise, if the laptop got stolen, it would just look like one of the SSD expansion cards and I would likely be able to get a general location to report to the authorites before it is discovered.
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@eden881 This would be highly illegal, since Apple would DEFINETLY NOT allow MagSafe’s trademarked connector, or any other Apple exclusive product, in something that’s not Apple. Not only would it be illegal, Apple would sue the hell out of Framework. Framework is in no way affiliated with Apple, nor are they likely to ever be. Give up all hope that any Apple exclusive feature will ever be in a Framework product.
Magnetic charging on the other hand is fine. Alternatives would be Volta, Magnilink, or Beast.
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Not secure. If the expansion card is removed (very often possible, since it require no tools), then the tracking stops. Yes, people will not notice that there is something inside the cards, but because it’s toolless removable it is not safe.
Your idea sound a lot like Computrace by Absolute. In that case there is a special circuitry built in onto the motherboard that does the tracking.
For something a bit more generic like a Tile you can maybe sandwich the PCB somewhere in the chassis if you don’t have every component, like say you only have one stick of RAM, or you are missing a speaker.
If you insist on having it in a expansion card, I might as well suggest that the card to have a USB plug so it can receive power from the system to keep it juiced up.
IR card anyone? As simple as a USB IR transmitter/receiver. Mostly useless, but easily doable.
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An idea, maybe can combine with USB-C card or can be alone. Two-level adjustable rubber feet to provide more ergonomic support, like this.
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An idea I had, would involve a new chassis revision that makes the piece that separates the two expansion ports removeable. Then you could have (more than) double width expansion cards, allowing for more circuitry and more ports. E.g. a rear type-C that is just a passthrough to the rear internal port for charging, and then maybe a pair of type-A’s and type-C’s using an internal HUB off the front port.
As much as I like the idea of these expansion cards, personally I do think their size is a bit of a disadvantage in terms of port space, as it limits how many ports can physically be fit into a single laptop. (Granted, type-A is on its way out in favour of type-C)
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