I have the Brother 8500 card only (purchased in 2002) and 2003D which uses both cards and floppy disks (purchased in 2004) and used the OESD Magic Box to convert to cards from floppies, CDs, online purchases as well as Bernina Artista cards. Magic Box is also compatible with Pfaff, Singer, Janome, Elna, Kenmore & New Home (stated on the Box slots). The drawback to a Magic Box versus the Ultimate Box is that the cards only hold about 6 designs at a time. The Ultimate Box cards are able to hold more but the Magic Box won't accommodate doing so. I have both Vikant and Magic Box cards. At the time I bought them, they were both about $69.

Last year I purchased the PES2Card box which allows me to convert from Artista to Brother cards, as well as the floppies & CDs. What it also does is transfer from most cards -Brother, Artista are the only ones I've used- back to my computer to store on my hard drive or write to a floppy disk which is used in my 2003D. In other words, all my cards are now on floppies which are used most of the time in my machine. If I need to use the 8500 -which is card only- I use the card.

I believe there may be other boxes now that do what the PES2 box does. I use it for all my converting now. It operates on the same principle as all the boxes, just that it writes from a card in the box as well as writing to a card in the box.

Now the PES2 is the only box I use. Whenever I get a new design disk or card, I can write to a floppy and keep the original as backup. Since your machine does not use a floppy, you must stick with cards and - while I have not used the Vikant box - I believe the Vikant cards can hold more designs at a time. The PES2 box came with information telling exactly how much different manufacturer's cards can hold, stitch numbers I believe. I think Vikant was about 450,000, vs 50,000 or so for the Magic card. Don't quote me on the numbers because I haven't looked at that info for months.