Stay away from these...

Post #330,004 by folkert 7/20/10 10:38:37 PM Reply	Stay away from these... They are not very usable not very good. They fail a lot of the time and/or are extremely buggy. I've had phone calls with Greg Kroah-Hartman, extended private e-mails and some mailing list threads. In fact I have one sitting here. "certified" to work with OSX and Windows Vista and Windows XP. I also have a USB to PCMCIA adapter. Works better than the USB to ISA Adapter and lets just say... just better.
Post #330,006 by Another Scott 7/20/10 10:47:04 PM Reply	Sorry to hear that. We've got some old PCs at work running Win98 that need to be upgraded that this would be ideal for... Thanks for the info. Cheers, Scott.
Post #330,016 by folkert 7/21/10 7:17:59 AM 7/21/10 7:36:19 AM Reply	Some machines running Windows98... Can easily run WindowsXP. Just don't load them up... with huge policies and and restrictions and tons and tons of backgrounded processes. Also, there is a few places where these will work. after testing and testing and tweaking and tweaking. You see, USB was never quite intended to do this... Plus, there are three hardware signal conversions going on which makes thing horribly buggy. As You'll encounter, USB to PCI chipset (yes PCI) and then PCI to ISA Bridge chipset and then the ISA Chipset. At least the problems I've experienced is attributed to the additive hysteresis of the signal conversions as the only real ground between the module and the motherboard is the USB ground... which as a "good" ground" its not. Its not a good signal ground nor is it a good shielding ground. There-in lies the real issue. Edited by folkert July 21, 2010, 07:36:19 AM EDT Expand All History
Post #330,018 by Another Scott 7/21/10 7:26:52 AM Reply	Some, not these. They barely run 98.
Post #330,019 by folkert 7/21/10 7:38:04 AM Reply	See my edit... Also, I've run WindowsXP on Pentium 166MHz machines with 32MB of memory... not well, but its does do the job as a controller for a machine... once running. Takes a while... but you know that anyway.
Post #330,021 by Another Scott 7/21/10 8:16:05 AM Reply	Thanks. One machine I know of is an ISA/PCI machine. I'll check to see how much RAM, etc., it has. It's not networked, so being so old hasn't really been much of a problem. It might be worth the ~$250 or so to try, as moving to a new machine with new interface boards means new software, etc., etc. None of these new hardware and software changes will make us more productive in running the equipment - it's insurance. It would be great if it works, but if it doesn't it hasn't cost us much to try. That's the thinking at the moment, anyway. :-) Thanks. Cheers, Scott.
Post #330,094 by Another Scott 7/22/10 4:39:35 PM Reply	1995 vintage P-100, 64 MB RAM. http://www.microsoft.../sysreqs/pro.mspx Here's What You Need to Use Windows XP Professional Â PC with 300 megahertz or higher processor clock speed recommended; 233 MHz minimum required (single or dual processor system);* Intel Pentium/Celeron family, or AMD K6/Athlon/Duron family, or compatible processor recommended Â 128 megabytes (MB) of RAM or higher recommended (64 MB minimum supported; may limit performance and some features) I'm sure it's possible to boot XP on a P-100, 64 MB, but it would be terribly, terribly slow. We're probably still going to try the USB/ISA thingy, but we're also looking at other options including a USB replacement. Thanks again for the heads-up! There's few things more frustrating than trying to get PC I/O hardware working properly; if we know that it's a crapshoot, we won't bang our heads against the wall if it doesn't work. Cheers, Scott.
Post #330,009 by SpiceWare 7/21/10 12:02:44 AM Reply	bummer - thanks for the heads up

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