For example, PCMCIA software by SystemSoft calls the first slot in a system Slot 1, and the second Slot 2. The PCMCIA software product "CardWare" by VMI (also marketed by Award), calls the first slot Slot 0 and the second Slot 1. There can be no consistency between these different software products, because there is no standard convention for naming sockets.
Why should you need to know which slot is which? Suppose you have a system with two slots, and in those two slots you have two identical I/O cards: one dims the lights in your office, the other detonates an Alpha-Omega bomb (you don't want to know) which will collapse the entire universe into a singularity. Since the I/O cards are identical, the application software can't tell which card is connected to which device. It needs to ask you, the user, to enter the number of the slot containing the output you want activated. Given the current state of affairs, entering the number 1 might refer to brightening your office or destroying the entirety of creation. On most computers, the slots aren't even labeled.
Okay, you're probably not controlling an Alpha-Omega bomb anyway. What you might be doing, though, is monitoring two industrial networks and downloading recipes to equipment on the factory floor. The situation is serious enough to deserve some real attention from the PCMCIA standards organization.
Rockwell Software has joined PCMCIA and sponsored a proposal to correct this problem. The proposal will be voted on by PCMCIA in December of 1995.