One more (final?) query about 760XD and USB adaptor

[RV_ABZ]

Hi folks,

First of all, my congrats for this great forum. I've been a user of TP for the last 10years and came upon this forum several months ago. 'been of great help and helped me sort out many many issues.

I've got 2 * 760XDs. One running 98SE, the other upgraded to W2k a while back. I've been using the one with 98SE one nearly daily until last year and installed the W2k mWave drivers on the other one a few days ago and want to give it a sort of 2nd life for my boy.

I had of course encountered the issue of 32bit Cardbus adaptor with W2k but managed to keep it networked with a 16bit 3Com Megahertz 10/100Mb Ethernet PC card then a Cisco Aironet 350 card. No USB though...

I use either a 2nd 3Com 10/100 PC card or a 32bit Cardbus Belkin 802.11b/g card on the 98SE 760XD along a dual-port 32bit SiteCom USB2.0 adaptor. So this one allows me to hook USB scanner, printer, memory stick or digital camera, but it's always a pain with drivers and no USB plug-and-play most of the time.

Naturally, I've been reading the many posts on the lack of USB support and Cardbus restrictions on 760XD with W2K but I've been wondering if there'd be any 16-bit card that could provide what's needed.

Anyone knows of a single or dual-port 16-bit USB adaptor that could be fitted? Never been able to find one, does that even exist?

[phool@round]

Hello RV_ABZ and welcome to the Forum!

I've kept my 760XD at Win98 just for that reason. See if you can find an ISA USB card.... you won't. 16bit cards are designed around the ISA enhanced architecture. USB is a PCI architecture, hence 32bit. That is why there isn't a 16bit card. Network pcmcia cards can be either ISA or PCI, my first 10/100bt network card was ISA and I thought I was in heaven.....

[RV_ABZ]

Well, that's it then, Win98 for USB!

Thanks for your reply.

[RV_ABZ]

Not totally giving up!...

Came across this:
http://www.elandigitalsystems.com/expresscard/eca16.php

I've contacted Elan to check whether there is a potential solution via their PCMCIA to ExpressCard adaptor or not.

Assuming it's not too expensive and it supports a USB ExpressCard adaptor, the ECA16 might just be the solution.

[whizkid]

Googling ECA16 brought me to this:

http://www.synchrotech.com/products/med ... eca16.html

16-bit PCMCIA to ExpressCard USB adapter for $85. That is to say, it only works with cards that use USB-style communication (such as memory card adapters and simple RS232 ports), NOT cards that use PCIe communication, such as USB adapters.

Sorry.

Oh! Depending on what you want to do with your USB ports, you might look into running Linux on that machine. It would be up to date, less prone to malware, and has plenty of free (and Free) software.

[RV_ABZ]

Might give Linux a try. 760XDs powerful enough for a recent Ubuntu release?

[whizkid]

It will run. It may not be pretty. I installed Ubuntu 6.06 LTS on my 750P a little while ago. 33MHz 486 and 36MB RAM. No GUI yet.

Check out: http://www.thinkwiki.org/

The Pentium 166 is fine. The video chip is supported by the trident driver. You will want a lightweight desktop like XFCE (default in Xubuntu) or even lighter and load up on RAM first. Twbook says you can have 104MB in that machine and crucial and kahlon agree... so don't expect much speed.

Keep us posted!

[RV_ABZ]

Had a look at Ubuntu releases today and noticed that the KDE version normally requires 320Mb of RAM whereas the XFCe will do with 128Mb. Although both releases have a variant for low-memory systems, I think I'll take no chances and just try the Xubuntu release.

Job for the week-end, sad I know, but it's raining after all!

[Nerdette]

I haven't got any info for you regarding your own questions, but I wonder if you could let me know the model number of that 32bit Cardbus Belkin 802.11b/g card. I had understood that most wireless g cards required a minimum of 200 Mhz, but if you've found one that works, I'd really like to get one.

From what I've seen so far, even the "lite" versions of most linux distros have system requirements that would rule out use on a 760. But there are a couple of linux distros that are geared toward older hardware. I've been looking into both Puppy Linux (http://www.puppylinux.com/) and DeLi Linux (http://www.delilinux.org), as these are said to breathe new life into old systems. DeLi will apparently install from floppies, which would be a good thing since the 760 won't boot from CD. There's also DSL ([censored] Small Linux), but I understand it's generally too limited for everyday use. Just thought I'd pass that on to you and also ask if there's anyone who has tried either of those.

If I manage to get one of these linux OSs up and running, I'll start a thread on it...

[phool@round]

There is a boot floppy called "SmartBootManager" which will allow you to choose your CD-Rom at boot. Simply install it to floppy, insert the floppy in the 760, boot up and voila' you can choose your install CD!

Here's the link for SBM; http://sourceforge.net/projects/btmgr

Here's a good tutorial on how to create the floppy; https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SmartBootManager

I use a Trendnet TEW-421PC 802.11g wireless with Linux drivers right on the install floppy. (My kind of company!)

[RV_ABZ]

I wonder if you could let me know the model number of that 32bit Cardbus Belkin 802.11b/g card.

Model No is F5D7010. Works no problem with W9x.