rb said:
256MB RAM, 800 MHZ and up, 20 gb HD. Description of a computer I might
buy.
The position has two USB slots.
Is there any way of telling if they're the old PC-1 slots? I recall some
older pcs have the PC-1 instead of PC-2 USB input.
Since there are only two USB jacks, that suggests an early
USB implementation, meaning they are USB 1.1 rate. USB 1.1 is
suitable for a USB keyboard and USB mouse, for example. So
those USB ports can still be used. You could even plug a
flash memory stick in there, but the transfer rate would be
limited to about 1MB/sec or so.
If the computer is an HP/Dell/Gateway/Emachine, you might be
able to look up the hardware characteristics, based on the
machine model number.
If the computer is home built, the key information in that case
would be the motherboard make and model number. Then you can look
up what I/O capabilities it has.
And you can also plug in a PCI card, and add USB2 capability
to a machine with an add-in card. Some of the cards are about
$10 or so.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815104216
You also have to consider the OS that will be used with the
machine. While you can get a USB mass storage driver for Win98,
that doesn't mean that every USB function you can dream of
will work smoothly in Win98/Win98SE. An OS more modern than
that might help. Or one of the free Linux or Unix distributions
can release a lot of the capability in the hardware.
Paul
