On Fri, Dec 17, 2010 at 9:55 PM, John Jason Jordan <[email protected]>wrote:
> On Fri, 17 Dec 2010 17:06:40 -0800 > Denis Heidtmann <[email protected]> dijo: > > >Update: > > > >A lot water has gone under the proverbial bridge. With Russell's > >assistance, we got a CD drive functioning, installed Win 98, but it > >crashed twice identically, leading us to believe that the newer > >machine and the older OS did not want to live together. After the > >divorce, I tried installing 98 on a Gateway 4026GZ. It installed, but > >would only operate in safe mode. It did not know how to operate the > >display in anything other than the default. No matter; the USB did not > >work either. I downloaded a generic USB driver and installed it. The > >device manager said all is well with the USB. However, no life can be > >detected at the USB connections. I am calling this marriage not even > >begun, unless there is a counselor who can save it. > > > >So, the need remains: 1) Get the scanner to operate from some > >operating system (it used to operate on win 98/me.) to prove it can > >still be done. 2) If successful, acquire an old laptop which can do > >1). Russell has an old desktop which may be able to establish the > >proof of concept. And I suppose I could use a desktop, although I'd > >rather avoid the power and space use that entails. > > Do I understand correctly that the scanner requires USB? > > I spent a few minutes digging this evening and I found my ancient > laptop. Amazingly, it boots Windows 95, just as I left it many years > ago. It still has CorelDRAW 6.0, WordPerfect 5.0, Netscape Gold, > PageMaker 6.0 and some version of MS Office on it. It also has a Xircom > Credit Card Ethernet+Modem 28.8 and an Adaptec APA-1425/50/60 SCSI > card. (At the time I used this laptop I had an HP scanner that required > SCSI.) > > The hinges are cracked, but the screen is fine. It has a CD drive as > well as the floppy, and both are working. I was stunned to discover > that it has a whopping 8 MB of RAM. That's "megabytes." And the hard > drive is 1.2 GB. I even found a PDF of the spec sheet (Texas > Instruments Extensa 570CDT, also sold as Acer 570CDT) and apparently > you can upgrade the RAM to 40 MB. Might even get DSL on this thing. I > can't believe I used PageMaker in 8 MB of RAM. The copyright on the > spec sheet is 1996, to give an idea of the age. > > However, much as my memory insisted that it had a USB port, it does > not. One could stick in a PCMCIA adapter, if such an adapter were > available cheaply. It does have a port for an external mouse/keyboard, > though, as well as serial, parallel, and even a VGA out port. > > The box it was in also has all the Windows 95 install floppies. > > If you can use any or all of the above, let me know. I can easily bring > it to the Clinic Sunday. > _______________________________________________ > Quite a piece of history. Thanks for the offer, but my scanner is USB. From what I read, USB in that era had some growing pains, so adding another layer of uncertainty might not be the most efficient approach to getting it working. And I will not be able to be at the Clinic this Sunday. Thanks again, -Denis _______________________________________________ PLUG mailing list [email protected] http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
