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. […]
Show full quote

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)