workaround to substitute for USB?

[shoemakerted]

Hello,

Is there a workaround that will allow me to use USB on a system that
doesn't cooperate with USB?

Here are the specifics:
I have two older machines that are running Windows 98SE. I have a
card reader for a digital camera, with a USB connection. The
computers don't "see" the USB reliably. (I don't know why; I've got
lots of advice about that, much of it contradictory.) So I was
wondering if there is an adapter that will let me plug in the USB
device to a serial port, parallel port, etc. That way, the computer
would "see" the familiar parallel port (or whatever), and I could use
the card reader (albeit at a slower than normal rate).

Someone is going to say: Buy a new computer. Someone else is going to
say: Buy Windows XP. Both of those are good ideas but I don't want to
spend that much money. Instead, I'm willing to spend the time, and
learn something in the process.

I already have linux, which reads USB. I was hoping to do this on
Windows 98SE also.

Any ideas?

Thank you!

Ted Shoemaker

 

[Roby]

Hello,

Is there a workaround that will allow me to use USB on a system that
doesn't cooperate with USB?

Here are the specifics:
I have two older machines that are running Windows 98SE. I have a
card reader for a digital camera, with a USB connection. The
computers don't "see" the USB reliably. (I don't know why; I've got
lots of advice about that, much of it contradictory.) So I was
wondering if there is an adapter that will let me plug in the USB
device to a serial port, parallel port, etc. That way, the computer
would "see" the familiar parallel port (or whatever), and I could use
the card reader (albeit at a slower than normal rate).

Someone is going to say: Buy a new computer. Someone else is going to
say: Buy Windows XP. Both of those are good ideas but I don't want to
spend that much money. Instead, I'm willing to spend the time, and
learn something in the process.

I already have linux, which reads USB. I was hoping to do this on
Windows 98SE also.

Any ideas?

Thank you!

Ted Shoemaker

I tried usb on win98se also. Occasionally, it worked. Sorta. You've
already got linux, which handles usb perfectly. I use gtkam to copy
photos out of my digital camera directly and just mount my card reader
and use midnight commander to copy files as needed. Why not just use
what you've got?

ps: I have windows for workgroups aound here somewhere. Now THERE'S
a challenge for usb!

 

[DaveW]

Why not install a USB 2.0 PCI card, if you have an open slot in the back of
your computer. Then you should get a reliable USB connection totally
contained within the card. They are not very expensive.

 

[Paul]

Hello,

Is there a workaround that will allow me to use USB on a system that
doesn't cooperate with USB?

Here are the specifics:
I have two older machines that are running Windows 98SE. I have a
card reader for a digital camera, with a USB connection. The
computers don't "see" the USB reliably. (I don't know why; I've got
lots of advice about that, much of it contradictory.) So I was
wondering if there is an adapter that will let me plug in the USB
device to a serial port, parallel port, etc. That way, the computer
would "see" the familiar parallel port (or whatever), and I could use
the card reader (albeit at a slower than normal rate).

Someone is going to say: Buy a new computer. Someone else is going to
say: Buy Windows XP. Both of those are good ideas but I don't want to
spend that much money. Instead, I'm willing to spend the time, and
learn something in the process.

I already have linux, which reads USB. I was hoping to do this on
Windows 98SE also.

Any ideas?

Thank you!

Ted Shoemaker

What you might want to look for, is a PCI USB card that comes with a
driver disk. Some USB cards, at least in the past, came with an
"Orange Micro" USB driver on their driver disk.

Many cheap USB cards come with nothing, and there may not be any downloads
from the manufacturer's site. So what you want, is something with a
driver disk.

This one has a driver disk and claims Win98SE compatibility.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16815104309

The downside is, IOgear has used different chips on their cards. My
personal preference would be for a NEC based card. It looks like
they have made both NEC and ALI based cards, with the same model number.

http://www.iogear.com/main.php?loc=dm&driver&Item=GIC220U#display

Now, I made the mistake of trying their driver, and it does two things.

1) It doesn't prompt the user. It just installs (Yikes!).
2) There is no add/remove (double yikes).

The files installed are things like "ousbehci.sys" which is an
Orange Micro driver. I'm going to reboot now, and see if I'm hosed...

Paul

 

[philo]

Why not install a USB 2.0 PCI card, if you have an open slot in the back of
your computer. Then you should get a reliable USB connection totally
contained within the card. They are not very expensive.

Yep...
that's what I'd suggest too

 

[kony]

Hello,

Is there a workaround that will allow me to use USB on a system that
doesn't cooperate with USB?

Here are the specifics:
I have two older machines that are running Windows 98SE. I have a
card reader for a digital camera, with a USB connection. The
computers don't "see" the USB reliably. (I don't know why; I've got
lots of advice about that, much of it contradictory.) So I was
wondering if there is an adapter that will let me plug in the USB
device to a serial port, parallel port, etc. That way, the computer
would "see" the familiar parallel port (or whatever), and I could use
the card reader (albeit at a slower than normal rate).

Someone is going to say: Buy a new computer. Someone else is going to
say: Buy Windows XP. Both of those are good ideas but I don't want to
spend that much money. Instead, I'm willing to spend the time, and
learn something in the process.

I already have linux, which reads USB. I was hoping to do this on
Windows 98SE also.

Any ideas?

Wouldn't it be a bit premature to suggest things when we
don't know what advice you've been given and what of that,
you've tried?

It would also be useful to know a bit about the system, like
the motherboard make and model and anything else that seems
relevant, including when the computers don't "see" usb and
how this is evidenced or manifested.

 

[larry moe 'n curly]

I have two older machines that are running Windows 98SE. I have a
card reader for a digital camera, with a USB connection. The
computers don't "see" the USB reliably. (I don't know why; I've got
lots of advice about that, much of it contradictory.) So I was
wondering if there is an adapter that will let me plug in the USB
device to a serial port, parallel port, etc.

Someone is going to say: Buy a new computer. Someone else is going to
say: Buy Windows XP. Both of those are good ideas but I don't want to
spend that much money.

I don't know if Windows XP will help, but sometimes XP Home is
available for as little as $10-20, after rebate and coupon, from
Office Depot. www.salescircular.com lists local store deals but often
misses those for Windows XP It runs well on my 466 MHz system with
512MB, but I don't know how it will do with 256MB.

Some of the best sources of information about USB are www.usbman and
www.everythingusb.com, and for USB 2.0 cards they greatly favor the
NEC USB chips over everything else. Some dealers on eBay and
www.pricewatch.com advertise NEC cards for as little as $8-15,
occasionally including shipping, but a few dealers advertise NEC but
ship a card with an ALi or VIA chip instead. ALi is supposed to be
the worst, but I've had no problems with the VIA VT6212 chip, although
the older VT6202 chip was troublesome. It's reported that the latest
VIA USB 2.0 driver can help. BTW the VIA and NEC USB 2.0 chips work
even with Win 98, even though their instructions may say you need at
least Win 98SE.

 

[paulmd]

Hello,

Is there a workaround that will allow me to use USB on a system that
doesn't cooperate with USB?

Here are the specifics:
I have two older machines that are running Windows 98SE. I have a
card reader for a digital camera, with a USB connection. The
computers don't "see" the USB reliably. (I don't know why; I've got
lots of advice about that, much of it contradictory.) So I was
wondering if there is an adapter that will let me plug in the USB
device to a serial port, parallel port, etc. That way, the computer
would "see" the familiar parallel port (or whatever), and I could use
the card reader (albeit at a slower than normal rate).

Someone is going to say: Buy a new computer. Someone else is going to
say: Buy Windows XP. Both of those are good ideas but I don't want to
spend that much money. Instead, I'm willing to spend the time, and
learn something in the process.

I already have linux, which reads USB. I was hoping to do this on
Windows 98SE also.

Any ideas?

Thank you!

Ted Shoemaker

OK. What's the make and model of your computer (or motherboard), and
what is the bios revision you are running?

A BIOS upgrade MIGHT work (you;ll have to check if there is is one,
and is some mention of a usb related fix), and there's a post on
alt.sys.pc-clone.dell suggesting that a USB issue was fixed that way.
But HE was running XP, with migh better USB support.

 

[SteveSch]

I already have linux, which reads USB. I was hoping to do this on Windows
98SE also.

Hi Ted,

Had the same problem with se. I installed the following upgrade and now it
works great.

http://exuberant.ms11.net/98sesp.html

Steve

 

[GT]

Hello,

Is there a workaround that will allow me to use USB on a system that
doesn't cooperate with USB?

Here are the specifics:
I have two older machines that are running Windows 98SE. I have a
card reader for a digital camera, with a USB connection. The
computers don't "see" the USB reliably. (I don't know why; I've got
lots of advice about that, much of it contradictory.) So I was
wondering if there is an adapter that will let me plug in the USB
device to a serial port, parallel port, etc. That way, the computer
would "see" the familiar parallel port (or whatever), and I could use
the card reader (albeit at a slower than normal rate).

Someone is going to say: Buy a new computer. Someone else is going to
say: Buy Windows XP. Both of those are good ideas but I don't want to
spend that much money. Instead, I'm willing to spend the time, and
learn something in the process.

I already have linux, which reads USB. I was hoping to do this on
Windows 98SE also.

Until 2 months ago, we had run a Win98SE computer at my work with a USB
printer and everything worked perfectly, so the problem is probably not
Win98SE, more likely hardware, or drivers (lack of) for the device.