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Socket 7 system build

Chuck(G) said:
In theory, yes, but some P1, P2, P3, P4 and AMD boards support only a single floppy. The issue arises from the "Super I/O" chip not having enough pins to support an entire range of I/O devices and still have pins left over for an extra drive select and motor control. A few laptop systems will allow you to reconfigure the Super I/O to support a second floppy in lieu of a parallel port, for example.

I have a couple of such motherboards. Apparently, a second floppy drive was considered outdated even then.
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This is true, especially with the AMI BIOS married to Intel 430 chipsets. I have several of those boards that will only configure to 1 floppy. However, if your board has PCI, you can buy a cheap USB card and use an external 3.5 USB floppy and default your on-board floppy to 360/1.2. Works for me
 
Agent Orange said:
This is true, especially with the AMI BIOS married to Intel 430 chipsets. I have several of those boards that will only configure to 1 floppy. However, if your board has PCI, you can buy a cheap USB card and use an external 3.5 USB floppy and default your on-board floppy to 360/1.2. Works for me
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Getting DOS drivers for a 3.5" USB drive, while possible, does suck up the memory however. :)
 
Chuck(G) said:
Getting DOS drivers for a 3.5" USB drive, while possible, does suck up the memory however. :)
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In my recent experience, some of the PCI USB boards don't require drivers, everything thing seems to be included in the on-board BIOS - not unlike some of the older/better ISA HD controllers. It won't work in all instances, but I've had fairly good luck so far. It always a crap shoot when you try to blend the old with the new.
 
Uh, yeah--USB in the early 430 days was pretty um, interesting? I've got a whole carton of peripherals with USB plugs on them that no modern gear will even recognized as being plugged in, much less have drivers for. Even better, the motherboards thate these belong to don't work with many of the USB 1.0 peripherals that I still have.

A huge problem is that many devices only have drivers for Win95B-WinME (if you're lucky, NT 4). So, unless you have the right OS, you're out of luck.
 
Which for me on this build, won't be an issue since I'll be installing Windows 95B. I was actually thinking of adding a PCI usb card so that I could get an internal multi-card reader that plugs into an internally mounted USB connection. The card reader will actually be installed in the extra 3.5" bay.

I have also contacted Jimmy directly to see if he has the ports and such to plug into the mother boards headers. What he doesn't have, I'll buy through E-Bay. In particular, I'll be adding a serial port, Parallel port, USB and PS2. Plus I'll be installing the aforementioned PCI USB. So that should allow for at least a bit more USB functionality. The cost for the remaining bits and pieces is fairly minimal, and I can get most, if not all of them if I need to for under $25.00.

Do you suppose the PCI USB will present any real issues with 95B

I also know that USB functionality is all but non-existent for DOS. The same goes for the card reader. Is that correct?



Chuck(G) said:
Uh, yeah--USB in the early 430 days was pretty um, interesting? I've got a whole carton of peripherals with USB plugs on them that no modern gear will even recognized as being plugged in, much less have drivers for. Even better, the motherboards thate these belong to don't work with many of the USB 1.0 peripherals that I still have.

A huge problem is that many devices only have drivers for Win95B-WinME (if you're lucky, NT 4). So, unless you have the right OS, you're out of luck.
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Well, the PCI USB card depends on the availability of drivers for the card. There is a difference between USB drivers for Win95B and Win98, so don't assume that one will work with the other.

The furnny thing is that DOS drivers for the mass storage class do exist. See here, for example. The files may be hard to find now, but they're still wandering around. Of course, it's all going to be USB 1.0, but that's better than nothing.
 
I'd imagine there'd probably be better luck with Windows 98 which can be thinned down with the likes of Win98 lite, IE off etc. For example the WiFi wireless card I've got that is only a few years old has Win98 drivers but nothing for Win9B/C. Thomas have you done driver search to see if the card reader is supported by Win95B at all? I know my Transcend 6-in-1 reader doesn't.

As Chuck alludes to the driver model changed between Win95 and Win98.

The dos usb driver is listed at along with a custom boot disk http://hddguru.com/software/
 
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Caluser2000 said:
I'd imagine there'd probably be better luck with Windows 98 which can be thinned down with the likes of Win98 lite, IE off etc. For example the WiFi wireless card I've got that is only a few years old has Win98 drivers but nothing for Win9B/C. Thomas have you done driver search to see if the card reader is supported by Win95B at all? I know my Transcend 6-in-1 reader doesn't.

As Chuck alludes to the driver model changed between Win95 and Win98.

The dos usb driver is listed at along with a custom boot disk http://hddguru.com/software/
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Sweet... I'll copy the USB drivers for DOS, and have them ready... As far as the card reader is concerned, yes it does support Windows 95, or I should say the card is supported by Win 95. Either way, there won't be a problem. There is a driver disk that comes with the reader that includes drivers for Windows 95 through Win 2000. The driver disk doesn't appear to have any drivers for Windows 7 and 8.

On a side note: I have been reading the manual for my mobo that RJBJR pointed me to. That was the biggest help, but at the same time, I'm almost done with Upgrading and repairing PCs, 8th edition. I picked up a lot more than I thought. So right now, I'm just waiting for the reply from Jimmy regarding the connectors that are wired to the mobo headers. Honestly, I can't wait to get started, but I can't do anything at all until the case arrives. That won't be till towards the end of the week.
 
bettablue said:
Sweet... I'll copy the USB drivers for DOS, and have them ready... As far as the card reader is concerned, yes it does support Windows 95, or I should say the card is supported by Win 95. Either way, there won't be a problem. There is a driver disk that comes with the reader that includes drivers for Windows 95 through Win 2000. The driver disk doesn't appear to have any drivers for Windows 7 and 8.

On a side note: I have been reading the manual for my mobo that RJBJR pointed me to. That was the biggest help, but at the same time, I'm almost done with Upgrading and repairing PCs, 8th edition. I picked up a lot more than I thought. So right now, I'm just waiting for the reply from Jimmy regarding the connectors that are wired to the mobo headers. Honestly, I can't wait to get started, but I can't do anything at all until the case arrives. That won't be till towards the end of the week.
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There's a few more ways to go for USB. Check out this adapter from Newegg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812232002 . Also, TrendNet made a USB 2.0 adapter card that I used once upon a time in my old IBM A22's PCMCIA slot. So, that might be a long shot to adapt for PCMCIA support, but it could be done.
 
If you don't have a middleman issue, you can buy the same adapter for under $5 shipped on eBay. For most modern stuff, it's okay, but the ATAPI support for older gear is a bit spotty in my experience.
 
Agent Orange said:
There's a few more ways to go for USB. Check out this adapter from Newegg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812232002 . Also, TrendNet made a USB 2.0 adapter card that I used once upon a time in my old IBM A22's PCMCIA slot. So, that might be a long shot to adapt for PCMCIA support, but it could be done.
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Just to be clear, you are aware that the Vantec product that you linked to is for attaching IDE and SATA drives to a USB port, and not for adding USB to a system. There is a big difference between the two.

(I have the Vantec adapter - it's great for hard drive type devices. But it clearly does not add USB to a machine.)
 
mbbrutman said:
Just to be clear, you are aware that the Vantec product that you linked to is for attaching IDE and SATA drives to a USB port, and not for adding USB to a system. There is a big difference between the two.

(I have the Vantec adapter - it's great for hard drive type devices. But it clearly does not add USB to a machine.)
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You are correct, I missed on that one. This will work tried and true - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815166014
 
I've have two 486's with PCI running the cheapo Roswell adapter with no problems - both are WIN98. When I get some time, I'll throw in a WIN95 HD and see what happens. I think WIN95 (B&C) can be made to support USB 1.1. With respect to USB 2.0, its all about the OS. WIN98 runs pretty good on most high end 486's (100/133). So, if you're determined to implement USB 2.0 w/WIN98 on a lesser build, be prepared to take a performance hit.
 
The case arrived yesterday. I'm still awaiting the delivery of the video card from Jimmy, but I do believe I'm ready to outfit the mobo. Here's what I plan.

PCI USB http://www.ebay.com/itm/5-Ports-High...item27ca98a4f9 or http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16815166014

3pc I/O KIT 2 MALE DB9 1 PARALLEL DB25 to MOTHERBOARD CONNECTOR HEADER CABLE NEW

http://www.ebay.com/itm/3pc-I-O-KIT...t=US_Drive_Cables_dapters&hash=item3ccc4af3b6

That covers the parallel and serial ports, and a PCI USB card. :p I still want/need to locate a dual PS2 card for the keyboard and mouse, and USB1 with "L" bracket to connect to the Mobo headers though. Ive searched through E-Bay, Amazon, New Egg, Tiger Direct and a few other sites to no avail. Sure I ran across a bunch of the PS2 cards being sold in lots on E-Bay. There are plenty with USB 2.0 combined too. But the Mobo won't accept USB 2.0, so that by itself will be useless. Plus plain dual PS2 cards seem to be a lot more expensive than they should be. I considered buying a small lot and reselling the remainders... But I don't know if that would be feasible. I certainly don't want to end up stuck with something I can't use, or can't sell.

Since I need a few items yet before I can really begin assembly, I have a few questions before I start ordering everything I have in the list above:

1. Does anyone in reading this thread have the remaining pieces I need to outfit the mobo? PS2 card, USB1 with bracket for the mobo headers?
or---
2. is there another link to where I can buy these pieces at comparable prices?
and finally---
3. Am I missing anything? (Before anyone asks; the case did come with a 380 watt AT power supply:cool:)

I will be ordering the other items in my shopping list either later tonight, or tomorrow, so if anyone here has any better suggestions for what I've included, by all means, please reply. If all goes well, these bits and pieces will be here by the end of next week. That's when I want to start the build. Of course, if I don't have all of the pieces, I can and will hold off until I have everything I need.

One more thing. The multi-card reader I WAS looking at won't work the way I want... It requires it's own connection to the mobo floppy headers. That won't work because I'll be using dual floppy disks already. Can someone suggest an internal USB powered multi-card reader? One of those would be perfect since the PCI-USB card I'm going to purchase has an internal USB port to power the card reader. If possible, I would like to get it in beige to match the rest of the computer, but I'll accept anything if I can get one to fill the extra 3.5" floppy bay. I've seen some in the not too distant past that also take power from the main power supply. I don't remember if it connected to the system via USB though, but I like the idea of the power supply connection for those times when USB needs the extra oomph.

I'll be awaiting your responses. Thanks again.
 
That's just me being anal I guess... I can eliminate that any way. I just found out that my wife also bought me a REAL Microsoft Green Eyed Mouse for my 5150, so I'll have a serial mouse for the build!

But what about the rest? Am I barking up the right tree so to speak?

Caluser2000 said:
Personally I don't see the point of a dual PS/2 card when you can use a din-mini din adapter for the keyboard.
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