BitWrangler wrote on 2023-10-22, 23:54:

I remember a buddy of mine getting a socket 7 board with a USB header in '97 then having to order the bracket separately, then after about a month of staring at it, he managed to find a "cheap" USB mouse for about $40 to try it. Got mouse working in Win95.

Yep I needed to order the special bracket for the PCCHIPS board then get the OS updated.

The OS / Motherboard USB drivers had to all be done in order and working, then..,

To install the scanner and software required a lot of reformat and reinstall because you had to have certain things installed,
shut off the pc
Then Attach and power the scanner
Power the pc
It would detect,
then insert the correct disk and select the correct driver,
then reboot and don’t install the Twain stuff until after you install the main scanner suite

If you did anything slightly out of order everything was borked, you couldn’t fully uninstall and the scanner would detect but never do anything.

Wasted many hours on half installed USB devices in 95/98 with obtuse software and drivers.

I always read the original iMac was the first "legacy free" home computer. I guess that's tricky wording that might not mean first with USB.

rmay635703 wrote on 2023-10-23, 01:57:

Yep I needed to order the special bracket for the PCCHIPS board then get the OS updated. […]
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BitWrangler wrote on 2023-10-22, 23:54:

I remember a buddy of mine getting a socket 7 board with a USB header in '97 then having to order the bracket separately, then after about a month of staring at it, he managed to find a "cheap" USB mouse for about $40 to try it. Got mouse working in Win95.

Yep I needed to order the special bracket for the PCCHIPS board then get the OS updated.

The OS / Motherboard USB drivers had to all be done in order and working, then..,

To install the scanner and software required a lot of reformat and reinstall because you had to have certain things installed,
shut off the pc
Then Attach and power the scanner
Power the pc
It would detect,
then insert the correct disk and select the correct driver,
then reboot and don’t install the Twain stuff until after you install the main scanner suite

If you did anything slightly out of order everything was borked, you couldn’t fully uninstall and the scanner would detect but never do anything.

Wasted many hours on half installed USB devices in 95/98 with obtuse software and drivers.

Oh man I do not miss those days. Some devices wanted you to install software first, then plug in device. Some wanted to plug in device first, then install software. If you did it out of order things would get completely broken.

I managed to buy the Zida 5DTX II, and according to its manual, it dates back to mid-1997. This makes it quite close to the introduction of the USB standard in 1996. It's an awesome motherboard and serves as my daily retro runner. It supports both older and newer ports and connections, making it a really versatile choice for vintage computing.

Yeah it might be as early as you can get that actually has one that can work.

The U in USB had a succession of meanings IMO, Unusable Serial Bus; the first appearance, header maybe left unpopulated because it was that buggy, 0.9 maybe, definitely pre 1.0 .. then Unuseful SB; because at the time, there was very little for it, whatever there was didn't perform any better than other options, and if you got one thing, it's drivers may have locked out every other USB thing, in Win95 A and B... But Win 95 C, OSR 2.5, great improvement in USB support, so at least then you could maybe use two ports. Then finally before it earned "Universal" maybe there was "Unoptimal"SB, because now it worked well, but still mainly devices were low speed, 1.0 speeds to ensure widest compatibility, leading to more of the lack of performance, ECP printer port scanner does 1Mb/sec, USB scanner does 1Mbit sec too... there was no real "killer app" ... the march of time brought us Win98 with USB built in rather than tacked on, amounts of data to transfer got larger, and USB finally got a bit faster 10Mbit devices, there we go, that's universally useful now, and more applications such as wifi dongles and thumb drives really poured in.

5ven wrote on 2024-09-22, 13:12:

I managed to buy the Zida 5DTX II, and according to its manual, it dates back to mid-1997. This makes it quite close to the introduction of the USB standard in 1996. It's an awesome motherboard and serves as my daily retro runner. It supports both older and newer ports and connections, making it a really versatile choice for vintage computing.

Do the USB ports work for you? What CPU and BIOS are you using?

I had a Packard Bell Pentium 133 system that had USB ports. While ports were present on the motherboard, USB was disabled by default in the BIOS. The system was also preinstalled with Windows 95B OSR2. Which didn't support USB. This was late 1996 or early 1997.

I don't think I ever used the USB on that system. So I'm not aware if it worked or not.

douglar wrote on 2024-09-24, 17:59:

5ven wrote on 2024-09-22, 13:12:

I managed to buy the Zida 5DTX II, and according to its manual, it dates back to mid-1997. This makes it quite close to the introduction of the USB standard in 1996. It's an awesome motherboard and serves as my daily retro runner. It supports both older and newer ports and connections, making it a really versatile choice for vintage computing.

Do the USB ports work for you? What CPU and BIOS are you using?

I have not tested the USB ports yet but am planning to do so. I have a Microsoft SideWinder Game Pad Pro to test with the SDWRGMPD driver from 1999. There is a connector on the motherboard for two USB ports, and I have acquired the seemingly matching USB connector.

I am using Pentium 200 MHz MMX with that motherboard and the BIOS version is: 5DTX-TC VER2.2 (17/4/98)

Warning: older thread. But everything old is good on VOGONS.

Last month, I bought a 2x USB bracket with motherboard cable, a really old one at that, on a flea market. You never know when it comes in handy. When is NOW! I just found a 1996 P200MMX, Highscreen, using an A-Trend ATC-2000 V2.0 motherboard. 430HX, with USB header on the motherboard. Funny enough, the ATX I/O on that motherboard is like DOS era: DIN, serial, parallel, not even PS/2. And this PC as sold did not make USB useable because it was sold without a USB port bracket. So that will be my first mod to the PC. Proto USB!

https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/a-trend-atc-2000-v2-0

Do note the PCI Local Bus fancy silk screening on the top right. That will be my Windows wallpaper.

Highscreen ATX you say, does it have front USB by any chance?

Guys, every Win95 OSR2.1 disc was really identical to an OSR2.0 disc, plus the USB supplement file placed on the disc. So it installs as OSR2.0, and you were supposed to run the supplement if you wanted USB support (a really good idea anyway for other reasons, because it was a whole kernel update). It was the full USB support for the time, which did work up to the 12Mbit/s. The USB supplement came out in late '96 I believe. This did indeed work. I tried it at the time. The only time I think it didn't really work, were on the very odd early pre1.0 USB that motherboard manufacturers probably didn't really know what to do with anyhow. So as most boards were still AT, a pin header was included, and the other thing to watch out for is that it wasn't standardized. So all you needed to do in those days was go down to the store and buy a 5$ bracket. But for what?

The main issue with USB is there wasn't anything it was really needed for, unless you were really on top of the gadgets and found the odd scanner or CD writer that happened to support it. The first devices I remember using were mice and keyboards, but I know there were are few other things floating around. You'd also want to make sure to have a driver disc for some of this anyway, as remember, this was Win95, and the original stock drivers didn't really support USB, but this was still Win95 at this point, so a driver was potentially needed. So a lot of obstacles, which is why most people don't remember about this on USB and have only see it starting on Win98.

I don't remember trying a board that dated before '96 with USB. All in all, the likely all practical USB support genesis was in '96. I know some people are saying USB 0.9 worked too, but anyway good luck with that 😀

PD2JK wrote on 2026-08-23, 12:00:

Highscreen ATX you say, does it have front USB by any chance?

Far more wild. It's a Highscreen Skytower with front serial port. No kidding. The motherboard I/O panel on the back only has one serial, one parallel, one DIN. The motherboard has an internal USB header and preparation for an internal PS/2 header if I'm not mistaken. According to POST it's an ATC-2000 V3 actually.

the3dfxdude wrote on 2026-08-23, 16:37:

Guys, every Win95 OSR2.1 disc was really identical to an OSR2.0 disc, plus the USB supplement file placed on the disc. So it installs as OSR2.0, and you were supposed to run the supplement if you wanted USB support (a really good idea anyway for other reasons, because it was a whole kernel update). It was the full USB support for the time, which did work up to the 12Mbit/s. The USB supplement came out in late '96 I believe. This did indeed work. I tried it at the time. The only time I think it didn't really work, were on the very odd early pre1.0 USB that motherboard manufacturers probably didn't really know what to do with anyhow. So as most boards were still AT, a pin header was included, and the other thing to watch out for is that it wasn't standardized. So all you needed to do in those days was go down to the store and buy a 5$ bracket. But for what?

The main issue with USB is there wasn't anything it was really needed for, unless you were really on top of the gadgets and found the odd scanner or CD writer that happened to support it. The first devices I remember using were mice and keyboards, but I know there were are few other things floating around. You'd also want to make sure to have a driver disc for some of this anyway, as remember, this was Win95, and the original stock drivers didn't really support USB, but this was still Win95 at this point, so a driver was potentially needed. So a lot of obstacles, which is why most people don't remember about this on USB and have only see it starting on Win98.

I don't remember trying a board that dated before '96 with USB. All in all, the likely all practical USB support genesis was in '96. I know some people are saying USB 0.9 worked too, but anyway good luck with that 😀

Is OSR2.5 a good one to try? My motherboard is USB 1.0 (luckily not 0.x). Should it work with keyboards, mice (old logitechs with USB and PS/2 compatibility), joysticks (simple ones like the Top Gun model), old mass storage that works under W98 SE (with extra driver)? Or all those all expecting 1.1?

Nicolas 2000 wrote on 2026-08-23, 22:27:

Is OSR2.5 a good one to try? My motherboard is USB 1.0 (luckily not 0.x). Should it work with keyboards, mice (old logitechs with USB and PS/2 compatibility), joysticks (simple ones like the Top Gun model), old mass storage that works under W98 SE (with extra driver)? Or all those all expecting 1.1?

Functionally, Win95 B is Win95 B for any OSR release. There are differences between Win95 and Win98 though. Most early peripherals were made after Win98 was out, and Win95 really didn't have drivers for USB devices. So unless you have the documentation or driver disk, I wouldn't assume anything really about Win95 and USB beyond the bare essentials. I don't think I'd expect anything really different about the USB 1.1 spec in hardware except erratas for the controllers, so for USB 1.0 era controllers, if there were erratas they could possibly be solved by the latest motherboard chipset drivers. It would be a sad day if a device only could work with a USB 1.0 controller, or USB 1.1+ device could not work with USB 1.0, but which is likely not the case especially for a minor bump.

I prefer to install W95 as it's my 1996 DOS machine, but I'd also like to have some USB functionality. So I'll try to walk the narrow path of getting the onboard USB working on this 1996 relic under W95. And go to W98SE if required.

Nicolas 2000 wrote on 2026-08-23, 22:25:

PD2JK wrote on 2026-08-23, 12:00:

Highscreen ATX you say, does it have front USB by any chance?

Far more wild. It's a Highscreen Skytower with front serial port. No kidding. The motherboard I/O panel on the back only has one serial, one parallel, one DIN. The motherboard has an internal USB header and preparation for an internal PS/2 header if I'm not mistaken. According to POST it's an ATC-2000 V3 actually.

I have one of those Highscreen beige/green/grey cases, so I believe you. 😉 It was our first *new* computer at home. We never used the front panel COM2 serial. Mouse was PS/2, the connection for it was mounted on a expansion slot plate/bracket. The 56K modem was PCI, and thus we didn't utilize any serial ports in 1997. 😜 I have the ATX version with front USB behind a sliding door as well. (only one port)

Then yours must be a tiny bit newer than mine, because my 1996 ATX version only has the huge sliding door for the front bays, unless I haven't yet discovered something.

Nicolas 2000 wrote on 2026-08-24, 14:30:

Then yours must be a tiny bit newer than mine, because my 1996 ATX version only has the huge sliding door for the front bays, unless I haven't yet discovered something.

Yes it must be. You have the big tower with blue handle on the sliding door I think? Or a Colani?

Dark blue handle I think. Mine was an entire Highscreen PC; it has a highscreen sticker on the PSU and a Boostar ESS soundcard. Where is your USB door, on the top "pod" where the CPU speed display used to be perhaps?

In any case I'm glad the USB header is documented in the manual and its GND and VCC pins are on the silkscreen.

It is this case, USB port at the bottom, small 'door'.