A USB connection for an older lap top

JJ

Distinguished
Apr 5, 2004
48
0
18,580
Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

Okay, I know this topic has been thrashed to death but please let me
give it one last lash.

I've got a Mitsubishi Amity I with 2 16 bit pcmcia slots, a parallel
port and a serial port.

I have a 16bit SCSI card and 10bt netcard (10 meg speed)

So if it is impossible for USB to exist in the 16bit pcmcia format, am
I correct in assuming (logically deducing) that it is impossible for
me to buy a SCSI <=> USB adapter unless that adapter just happens to
be a PC with a USB port?

How about via the network card? Hmmm, I should look for a 100meg 16
bit net card while I am at it.

Thanks

Jay
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

JJ wrote:
> Okay, I know this topic has been thrashed to death but please let me
> give it one last lash.
>
> I've got a Mitsubishi Amity I with 2 16 bit pcmcia slots, a parallel
> port and a serial port.
>
> I have a 16bit SCSI card and 10bt netcard (10 meg speed)
>
> So if it is impossible for USB to exist in the 16bit pcmcia format, am
> I correct in assuming (logically deducing) that it is impossible for
> me to buy a SCSI <=> USB adapter unless that adapter just happens to
> be a PC with a USB port?
>
> How about via the network card? Hmmm, I should look for a 100meg 16
> bit net card while I am at it.
>
> Thanks
>
> Jay
if your older laptop has no USB support and your favorite printer
happens to be a modern USB type, then you will need to print thru a
network, either have the printer connected to a usb print server or
another computer with usb port.

i don't know of a usb scanner that can be controlled over network.

you can read usb cdrom, but probably cannot burn cd over a network.

i have not heard of a scsi to usb interface in the pc world, you may
find one in the mac world; this would also be quite rare.

if you must use usb appliances, you should retire and replace the old
laptop.
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

"JJ" <jayjayjpg@nadasppam-yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:4261c4f4.118054468@news2.flex.com...
> Okay, I know this topic has been thrashed to death but please let me
> give it one last lash.
>
> I've got a Mitsubishi Amity I with 2 16 bit pcmcia slots, a parallel
> port and a serial port.
>
> I have a 16bit SCSI card and 10bt netcard (10 meg speed)
>
> So if it is impossible for USB to exist in the 16bit pcmcia format, am
> I correct in assuming (logically deducing) that it is impossible for
> me to buy a SCSI <=> USB adapter unless that adapter just happens to
> be a PC with a USB port?

You might want to try looking for an old USB 1.1 PCMCIA card. It'll be
slower that slow, but should work fine for a keyboard or mouse. If you want
a hard drive or CD ROM, your best bet is to find an external drive that
connects with a PCMCIA card directly. You'll appreciate the dramatic
increase in speed. Heck, hard drives aside, you might as well stick to
SCSI.

> How about via the network card? Hmmm, I should look for a 100meg 16
> bit net card while I am at it.

You won't get anything like the speed. The only reason to get one is if
your connecting to a 100 speed non-switched hub, which is very unlikely
unless you actually own one. Just about everything out there will work fine
at 10, and your Amity isn't going to be able to deal with much more,
especially without a Cardbus slot.

Pagan
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

There is simply no way to get a function USB port on that machine. USB
is intimately tied into plug&play (because of the "hot swap"
capability), and it needs PCI slot functionality, which only a cardbus
card can provide. There's more going on here than just data transfer.
Think of the variety of devices that plug into USB slots ... printers,
scanners, disk drives, web cams, still cameras, all kinds of storage,
network adapters ..... the list is endless. The ability to detect and
work with all of these is as critical as the actual data transfer, and
it requires access to PCI facilities (cardbus in a notebook) that don't
exist in an ISA slot (a 16-bit PC Card slot in a notebook).

You can get scsi interfaces in 16-bit PC Card, and you can get Ethernet.
But you can't get USB, and all of the converters that you are
discussing are USB to {whatever} and won't work in the other direction.

[There actually are 100 megabit Ethernet 16-bit PC Cards, I have one
[Intel], but they cannot sustain anything like 100 Mb, I doubt if they
can even sustain 10Mb. Remember, there are even printer port Ethernet
adapters, but Ethernet has "handshaking", so as long as you can buffer a
few packets, you can implement Ethernet via interfaces which are
dramatically slower than the interface port being used. But most of the
time, the Ethernet line will be "waiting" rather than transferring data.]


JJ wrote:

> Okay, I know this topic has been thrashed to death but please let me
> give it one last lash.
>
> I've got a Mitsubishi Amity I with 2 16 bit pcmcia slots, a parallel
> port and a serial port.
>
> I have a 16bit SCSI card and 10bt netcard (10 meg speed)
>
> So if it is impossible for USB to exist in the 16bit pcmcia format, am
> I correct in assuming (logically deducing) that it is impossible for
> me to buy a SCSI <=> USB adapter unless that adapter just happens to
> be a PC with a USB port?
>
> How about via the network card? Hmmm, I should look for a 100meg 16
> bit net card while I am at it.
>
> Thanks
>
> Jay
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

Pagan wrote:
> "JJ" <jayjayjpg@nadasppam-yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:4261c4f4.118054468@news2.flex.com...
>> Okay, I know this topic has been thrashed to death but please let me
>> give it one last lash.
>>
>> I've got a Mitsubishi Amity I with 2 16 bit pcmcia slots, a parallel
>> port and a serial port.
>>
>> I have a 16bit SCSI card and 10bt netcard (10 meg speed)
>>
>> So if it is impossible for USB to exist in the 16bit pcmcia format,
>> am I correct in assuming (logically deducing) that it is impossible
>> for me to buy a SCSI <=> USB adapter unless that adapter just
>> happens to be a PC with a USB port?
>
> You might want to try looking for an old USB 1.1 PCMCIA card. It'll
> be slower that slow, but should work fine for a keyboard or mouse.
> If you want a hard drive or CD ROM, your best bet is to find an
> external drive that connects with a PCMCIA card directly. You'll
> appreciate the dramatic increase in speed. Heck, hard drives aside,
> you might as well stick to SCSI.

That would be a futile search, there's no such thing as a 16BIT USB PC card!

Regards,

James
 

JJ

Distinguished
Apr 5, 2004
48
0
18,580
Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

jayjayjpg@nadasppam-yahoo.com (JJ) wrote:
>Okay, I know this topic has been thrashed to death but please let me
>give it one last lash.
[snip]
>How about via the network card? Hmmm, I should look for a 100meg 16
>bit net card while I am at it.
>Thanks
>Jay

Thanks for the replies. I have officially given up on my question for
USB retrofit into my cute lil Amity thightop pc.

I will just get a 16 bit wifi (802.11) card and look into getting a 16
bit bluetooth card.

Thanks

Jay
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

"JHEM" <James@ESAD.SPAMMERS.thinkpads.com> wrote in message
news:G8t8e.18604$Xm3.14083@trndny01...
> Pagan wrote:
> > "JJ" <jayjayjpg@nadasppam-yahoo.com> wrote in message
> > news:4261c4f4.118054468@news2.flex.com...
> >> Okay, I know this topic has been thrashed to death but please let me
> >> give it one last lash.
> >>
> >> I've got a Mitsubishi Amity I with 2 16 bit pcmcia slots, a parallel
> >> port and a serial port.
> >>
> >> I have a 16bit SCSI card and 10bt netcard (10 meg speed)
> >>
> >> So if it is impossible for USB to exist in the 16bit pcmcia format,
> >> am I correct in assuming (logically deducing) that it is impossible
> >> for me to buy a SCSI <=> USB adapter unless that adapter just
> >> happens to be a PC with a USB port?
> >
> > You might want to try looking for an old USB 1.1 PCMCIA card. It'll
> > be slower that slow, but should work fine for a keyboard or mouse.
> > If you want a hard drive or CD ROM, your best bet is to find an
> > external drive that connects with a PCMCIA card directly. You'll
> > appreciate the dramatic increase in speed. Heck, hard drives aside,
> > you might as well stick to SCSI.
>
> That would be a futile search, there's no such thing as a 16BIT USB PC
card!

Thank you.

Pagan
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

jayjayjpg@nadasppam-yahoo.com (JJ) wrote:
>Thanks for the replies. I have officially given up on my question for
>USB retrofit

Hey guess what - I saw this today at Interop.com

http://www.lantronix.com/device-networking/external-device-servers/ubox.html

You plug this into an ether port and you can plug 4 usb devices into
it. So I guess I can plug this into my 10bT port and get say 2-3 meg
transfer rate. $180 MSRP - I have no idea what street price is.

Jay
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

"JJ (jj)" <jayjayjpg@nadasppam-yahoo.com> wrote in message news:427e790e.357098734@news2.flex.com...
Date: Wed, 04 May 2005 07:28:58 GMT

jayjayjpg@nadasppam-yahoo.com (JJ) wrote:
>Thanks for the replies. I have officially given up on my question for
>USB retrofit

Hey guess what - I saw this today at Interop.com

http://www.lantronix.com/device-networking/external-device-servers/ubox.html

You plug this into an ether port and you can plug 4 usb devices
into it. So I guess I can plug this into my 10bT port and get
say 2-3 meg transfer rate. $180 MSRP - I have no idea what
street price is.

Hi Jay... Wow! I could use something like this. As I basically only
have one computer fired up on my network at a time. And this would
end up the need to fire up a second one or sometimes a third one
from time to time. <grin>






Cheers!


________________________________________________________
Bill (using a HP Pavilion AMD 1.2GHZ under Windows 2000)
-- written and edited within WordStar 5.0