ThinkpadIL wrote on 2021-10-15, 19:42:

Looks like there is no way to add a "regular" USB connection for hopeless devices like HP 200LX and for each purpose you have to find a specific way. 🙄

If it has an ISA bus, accessible in some way, then you could add a USB connector for storage devices using the CH375 chip. Although it will be abysmally slow. 😀

weedeewee wrote on 2021-10-15, 20:16:

ThinkpadIL wrote on 2021-10-15, 19:42:

Looks like there is no way to add a "regular" USB connection for hopeless devices like HP 200LX and for each purpose you have to find a specific way. 🙄

If it has an ISA bus, accessible in some way, then you could add a USB connector for storage devices using the CH375 chip. Although it will be abysmally slow. 😀

MSD.EXE says Bus Type: ISA/XT/Classic Bus

As mentioned keyboard/mouse could be tricky.

If it ends up being just for storage, could PCMCIA CF or SD reader work? I'm not sure what you'll have to do to get those mounted in DOS though. Most older packaging for them mentions at least Win9x.

SScorpio wrote on 2021-10-15, 20:44:

As mentioned keyboard/mouse could be tricky.

If it ends up being just for storage, could PCMCIA CF or SD reader work? I'm not sure what you'll have to do to get those mounted in DOS though. Most older packaging for them mentions at least Win9x.

As for HP 200LX, one of the most hopeless MS-DOS computers, PCMCIA ATA Flash Cards and CF Cards via PCMCIA work just fine.

ThinkpadIL wrote on 2021-10-15, 20:56:

SScorpio wrote on 2021-10-15, 20:44:

As mentioned keyboard/mouse could be tricky.

If it ends up being just for storage, could PCMCIA CF or SD reader work? I'm not sure what you'll have to do to get those mounted in DOS though. Most older packaging for them mentions at least Win9x.

As for HP 200LX, one of the most hopeless MS-DOS computers, PCMCIA ATA Flash Cards and CF Cards via PCMCIA work just fine.

I don't know about the hp 200LX.
Do you know about the Atari Portfolio ? 😁

weedeewee wrote on 2021-10-15, 21:03:

ThinkpadIL wrote on 2021-10-15, 20:56:

SScorpio wrote on 2021-10-15, 20:44:

As mentioned keyboard/mouse could be tricky.

If it ends up being just for storage, could PCMCIA CF or SD reader work? I'm not sure what you'll have to do to get those mounted in DOS though. Most older packaging for them mentions at least Win9x.

As for HP 200LX, one of the most hopeless MS-DOS computers, PCMCIA ATA Flash Cards and CF Cards via PCMCIA work just fine.

I don't know about the hp 200LX.
Do you know about the Atari Portfolio ? 😁

Well, I'm not crazy enough yet to buy Atari Portfolio, nor HP 95LX 🙄... but yes, of course I know about them 😄

ThinkpadIL wrote on 2021-10-15, 21:07:

Well, I'm not crazy enough yet to buy Atari Portfolio, nor HP 95LX 🙄... but yes, of course I know about them 😄

HP-95LX is still a beast compared to the atari portfolio 🤣

cyclone3d wrote on 2021-10-15, 19:09:

Microsolutions also made a parallel port external HDD back in the day. I have one, but have never used it. No idea what the max size the Microsolutions adapter supports.

I used to have a H45 QuickDrive parallel port enclosure which supported 1 IDE drive. But yes, there was a problem using drives over about 8 GB IIRC. I think they worked but you could only format them to that size.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/194213649176 <--- This works great on my old win95 ibm laptop it shows up as a secondary hard drive

Oldskoolmaniac wrote on 2021-10-16, 00:12:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/194213649176 <--- This works great on my old win95 ibm laptop it shows up as a secondary hard drive

Yes, this one works fine even with HP 200LX under MS-DOS 5.0. I have one.

The HP200LX seems to have a PCMCIA slot, so it might be possible to install an USB PCMCIA card.
Together with matching drivers (PCMCIA card services or PC Card services etc) it might run on the 200LX.

That being said, it's not too easy to find something on the web.
Google nolonger obeys the quotation marks the way it used to, so searching explicitly for "USB 1.0" or "USB 1.1" cards shows results for newer USB controllers for Cardbus, too.
(I used "usb 1.1 pcmcia 16-bit")

https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/ques … ard-16bits/8695

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=75688

Jo22 wrote on 2021-10-16, 04:59:

The HP200LX seems to have a PCMCIA slot, so it might be possible to install an USB PCMCIA card. Together with matching drivers ( […]
Show full quote

The HP200LX seems to have a PCMCIA slot, so it might be possible to install an USB PCMCIA card.
Together with matching drivers (PCMCIA card services or PC Card services etc) it might run on the 200LX.

That being said, it's not too easy to find something on the web.
Google nolonger obeys the quotation marks the way it used to, so searching explicitly for "USB 1.0" or "USB 1.1" cards shows results for newer USB controllers for Cardbus, too.
(I used "usb 1.1 pcmcia 16-bit")

https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/ques … ard-16bits/8695

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=75688

200LX has 16 bit PCMCIA port. Unfortunately 16 bit PCMCIA USB cards do not exist. All of them are 32 bit Cardbus cards (with copper stripe and bumps on the connector edge). One can sometimes see USB cards with no bumps, but that's just an old case, guess for cost saving. These are also Cardbus cards.

According to the Amiga folks, there was that CFU950 chip for 16-Bit PCMCIA,
but actual cards using it became very rare. 🙁

https://www.alldatasheet.com/datasheet-pdf/pd … XCFU950_07.html

Maybe using Compact Flash cards is an alternative.
They are kind of pin compatible to PCMCIA, but shorter/smaller?
Well, there are CF-PCMCIA adapters

Back in time, I had a WLAN (WiFi) CF card for my HP Jornada PDA.
It was in the early 2000s, I vaguely remember. When people used 802.11b and WEP64 or WEP128 encryption still.

ThinkpadIL wrote on 2021-10-15, 19:25:

cyclone3d wrote on 2021-10-15, 19:18:

What exactly are you looking to hook up via USB in DOS then? Are there DOS drivers for these USB devices you want to use?

Other than storage devices? Keyboard for example.

There are ways to connect a keyboard to the 200LX, one of them being infrared, the other via the serial port, the latter is also true for mice.

Jo22 wrote on 2021-10-16, 04:59:

The HP200LX seems to have a PCMCIA slot, so it might be possible to install an USB PCMCIA card. Together with matching drivers ( […]
Show full quote

The HP200LX seems to have a PCMCIA slot, so it might be possible to install an USB PCMCIA card.
Together with matching drivers (PCMCIA card services or PC Card services etc) it might run on the 200LX.

That being said, it's not too easy to find something on the web.
Google nolonger obeys the quotation marks the way it used to, so searching explicitly for "USB 1.0" or "USB 1.1" cards shows results for newer USB controllers for Cardbus, too.
(I used "usb 1.1 pcmcia 16-bit")

https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/ques … ard-16bits/8695

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=75688

As Bondi has mentioned above, those are CardBus PC Cards and they are not compatible with HP 200LX PCMCIA slot.

Though there were some interesting Japanese CF to USB adaptors (see attached) but those were intended to work with PDAs and Windows and were intended to be used with Mass Storage Devices only.

Jo22 wrote on 2021-10-16, 11:18:

According to the Amiga folks, there was that CFU950 chip for 16-Bit PCMCIA, but actual cards using it became very rare. 🙁 […]
Show full quote

According to the Amiga folks, there was that CFU950 chip for 16-Bit PCMCIA,
but actual cards using it became very rare. 🙁

https://www.alldatasheet.com/datasheet-pdf/pd … XCFU950_07.html

Maybe using Compact Flash cards is an alternative.
They are kind of pin compatible to PCMCIA, but shorter/smaller?
Well, there are CF-PCMCIA adapters

Back in time, I had a WLAN (WiFi) CF card for my HP Jornada PDA.
It was in the early 2000s, I vaguely remember. When people used 802.11b and WEP64 or WEP128 encryption still.

Well, CF Cards of course a great alternative to USB Disks-on-key, but adding USB connection (even if for Mass Storage Devices only) is a nice challenge. 🙂

lolo799 wrote on 2021-10-16, 13:43:

ThinkpadIL wrote on 2021-10-15, 19:25:

cyclone3d wrote on 2021-10-15, 19:18:

What exactly are you looking to hook up via USB in DOS then? Are there DOS drivers for these USB devices you want to use?

Other than storage devices? Keyboard for example.

There are ways to connect a keyboard to the 200LX, one of them being infrared, the other via the serial port, the latter is also true for mice.

Yes, of course. There was a company that was selling Apple Newton keyboards specially modified to be used with HP 200LX, and regarding using an infrared keyboard I've read in Japanese HP 200LX Hardware Bible book.

But still, using an "ordinary" IBM PC compatible keyboard is much more convenient way from my point of view.

ThinkpadIL wrote on 2021-10-15, 13:25:

Serial-to-USB

For mice only...
https://github.com/mborjesson/USB-Mouse-to-Serial
https://www.versalent.biz/usbm232.htm

Grzyb wrote on 2021-10-16, 16:22:

For mice only...
https://github.com/mborjesson/USB-Mouse-to-Serial
https://www.versalent.biz/usbm232.htm

Nice, though that first one... using a Raspberry Pi seems a slight bit overkill 😀

Not really. It has to be fast enough to translate the USB protocol to serial.