that it is fully charged by illuminating a second led 119 of a different color than the first led 118 the docking station software is automatically activated whenever the mcd 109 is connected to the docking station 100 and enables the mcd 109 to use any peripheral attached to the peripheral connectors 103 104 105 106 possible peripherals include but are in no way limited to scanners cameras plotters magnetic disk drives printers compact disc drives dvd drives and tape drives thus the docking station 100 also provides the mcd 109 with access to a variety of peripherals drivers for the peripherals must be run from the mcd 109 as each type of mcd 109 tends to have a different operating system drivers may be stored on the mcd 109 during a software installation via a pc to reside in the memory of the mcd or provided to the mcd 109 by the docking station 100 via flash cards 130 connected to universal flash card connector ports 131 drivers provided via flash cards 130 add flexibility with respect to the number and kinds of peripherals and may be uploaded to the mcd 109 at the time of docking and reside on the mcd 109 only during the time the mcd 109 is docked in the docking station 100 such a feature would compensate for the limited memory of some mcd 109 0038 fig5 depicts another embodiment of the invention in which a detachable mcd holder 201 is attached to a sidewall of the docking station 200.