Windows 95 w/USB Support?

TBE on 5/2/2010 at 12:23

So my latest piece of garbage I've brought home to "fix up" is an old Pentium 75 MHz HP computer. It has tiny hard drive, like 420 MB or something, and didn't come with CD ROM. It took about 4 hours to figure out how to get CD ROM even recognized by the damn BIOS, but it finally did. So I have this old Windows 95 CD ROM with USB support it says. I haven't installed it yet, but I'm wondering if I can drop in a USB PCI card, and this updated version of Win 95 will work with said card? Any experiences with this, peeps? It's already been huge hassle to get to where I'm at, so I may as well install Windows 95 fully, and see if someone needs archaic system to play old ass games or something. :confused:

Brian The Dog on 5/2/2010 at 14:37

(http://www.usbman.com/Win95%20USB%20Guide.htm) This sounds like Windows 95 only supports USB on the motherboard, and not on plug-in PCI cards, and the cards I've seen for sale are only Win98 onwards. The installation guide for Win95 sounds pretty complicated compared to modern devices as well! I think these would only be USB 1.1 as well.

TheOutrider on 5/2/2010 at 16:23

Your best bet would probably be to check the card for what USB controller chip it uses, and seeing if you can find drivers for that for Win95. But yeah, I'd not put any bets on this. Win98 works fine on a P75 though, was using that myself for years, so if you can find a copy of 98 (or better, 98SE) you'll be fine.

TBE on 5/2/2010 at 20:30

Problem is system only has 8 MB RAM, which is below the 16 MB required for Win 98. I'm currently watching the Win 95 install right now. System came with some odd BNC network connector, and some other ethernet network card. Hoping it's 10 base ethernet at least.

Install seems to be going smoothly, thanks for the advice about USB. Looks like I'll have to live without it. I just had an extra drop in card for USB, so that would have been convenient.

Al_B on 5/2/2010 at 20:39

Why are you putting yourself through this pain? Your descriptions of the network cards sound like (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10BASE2) 10 base 2 and (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10BASE5) 10 base 5 both of which are better resting in peace.

TBE on 5/2/2010 at 21:06

Ugh, yeah, that looks like the network cards installed.

I originally bought this for $8. I was hoping to find a 5 or so GB hard drive for another project. But this 420 MB hard drive was too small for the project. So out of curiosity, I started the PC up. It worked but needed the OS installed.

This is "my fun" I have occasionally. Get old hardware working, and sell it for like $10 profit. It's part of my get rich slow scheme, and it's working!:thumb:

Al_B on 5/2/2010 at 21:58

For $8 that sounds like a decent purchase. As long as the components are stable you may be missing some opportunities. Ditch the network cards and buy a couple of more modern ones for $10. Stick an OS like (http://www.openbsd.org/) OpenBSD and a VPN like (http://openvpn.net/) OpenVPN and suddenly you have a security appliance that is worth ten times what you've paid for it.

Of course - that's hugely cynical but you'd learn a lot by trying it.

baeuchlein on 6/2/2010 at 18:47

There are several possible problems with Win95 and USB. I recommend to install Win95. Make a backup of it if you want to, then plug in the USB card and see whether Win95 recognizes it or not.

If the card is recognized properly, you can attach something to the USB ports and see whether that device works flawlessly with Win95.

Concerning the network card(s): If you want to use the card(s?) that came with the machine, try to find out first whether it's one card or two. I have some older network cards which come with two or even three interfaces, but only one of them can be used at a time.

One of these interfaces uses today's "RJ45" connector. This is the one I use, since the network cables here come with the appropriate plug. The last time I saw BNC cables in use was about 15 years ago.

The second connector is the BNC one, a round one. The third one found on some (but not all) of these old cards is called AUI and looks like an old game port connector for joysticks and gamepads: Fifteen tiny holes in two rows.

The problem I frequently had with these three connectors: Which one is configured for use? On some cards (e.g., 3COM Etherlink III), a program is used to configure the network card. The problem with these cards was that "Auto" did not work at times. Only after I told the card to always use the RJ45 connector, these cards would work properly.

Another card, an "NE2000 compatible" one, had jumpers, but I had no data sheet or manual to find out what the jumpers did. I was about to throw the card away just before I found out which one switched from the BNC to the "RJ45" connector. And finally, this old thing worked flawlessly.

These old 10mbit cards are too slow if you routinely transfer gigabytes of data to or from the machine in which they are, but otherwise these are not as bad as others here seem to think. One of my machines will not accept a modern 100mbit card and therefore uses ancient 10mbit ones, and even browsing the internet is not noticeable slower than with 100mbit cards.

So maybe you should keep that card inside the machine for now, and if it turns out to be too slow for whatever you still do with the old computer, you can still see whether you can find a 100mbit network card which comes with Win95 drivers.

Concerning Win98: Yes, it wants to have 16 MB RAM for installation, and I don't know any way around this. However, once you installed Win98, it is usually possible to go back to 8 MB RAM (in case you "borrowed" the RAMs from another computer) and use Win98. It may not operate very fast, but who would call a 75-MHz-Pentium fast anyway?;)

Maybe if you start SETUP.EXE from the CD and append parameters like /IM ("don't check memory") or /NM (several other checks, such as for a 486 or newer processor, are skipped), the installation would work even with 8 MB RAM, but I cannot verify that at the moment. To do that, you would have to boot from a boot disk and not from the CD, and then start SETUP.EXE from the Win98 CD. I think it's either in the root directory of the CD or maybe in \WIN98.

Well, I think this should point you into the right direction concerning installation.

Al_B on 6/2/2010 at 23:07

Quote Posted by baeuchlein

Well, I think this should point you into the right direction concerning installation.

Hopefully it's run away as quickly as you can.

There's a reason that computers have moved away from Windows 95, 10 Base 2 or Thicknet networks. They were necessary at the time but things have moved on. For $8 it's not a bad purchase for spares but it's not worth spending hours trying to coax Windows 98 onto it.

(IMHO of course).

TBE on 7/2/2010 at 06:53

* Installed Windows 95 without a hitch
* Ethernet card actually works plugged into my router
* Internet Explorer 3.0 is not functional on modern internet :(
* Installed Internet Explorer 5.5 SP 2!
* Speed leaves a little to be desired, but it works fully.
* Putting it up for sale on the local newspaper classifieds, they're free online ads, kinda like Craigslist.org

Yeah, I invested way too much time for this thing, but it really did work back to it's full potential when I was done. When we all live below ground in the Matrix, I'll be the guy you're all wishing you had to hack together a system to interface. ;)