Wi Fi with Win Me

[Reloadron]

Actually, I use inpout32.dll and XP. Yeah, I guess it's all a moot point. It's on my list of things to do to get off the parallel port and on to USB anyway.

Yeah, it works as advertised in XP but with more enhanced security in Vista and Windows 7 I never got it to work. Both USB and Ethernet ports are the way to go. I am by no means close to a programmer but do write basic data acquisition stuff and dabble in the stuff. My take is like I said, time for us to move on.

You guys have a great evening. Long work day and a six pack later I hear the bed calling me. Thank God I begin a 3 day weekend.

CIAO
Ron

 

[Sceadwian]

USB and ethernet relative to a parllel port have incredibly high latency though, mind you this isn't generally a problem for the bulk of applications.

 

[HarveyH42]

Pretty funny thread, I was handed a slightly damaged Dell Inspiron 3200 a few weeks ago, which has Windows ME installed. After buying a power adapter for $13, it booted and the battery charged. The CDROM sound like its dragging or something, might be some physical damage, but reads okay. Windows 95 didn't have USB ports, not sure if it got added later, might check. The USB port was a little squashed and deformed, but managed to straighten out enough to plug into, unfortunately, didn't seem to work, but had power, needed drivers, downloaded them, burned to a CD, installed them. Had the USB working with WiFi and flash drives for about two days, now it doesn't. Only have a 95 install disk (last time I built a computer), the rest were store bought, and Windows pre-installed...

 

[Sceadwian]

USB was available starting with Windows 98 SE.

 

[Reloadron]

Since the system is a Dell then any Dell OEM disk should install. If you could get your hands on a Dell OEM OS disk for Windows ME it would load no problem. There is also a good possibility that a Windows XP Dell OEM disk would install. Just for the hell of it, go to the Dell website and see if that model ever supported Windows XP. If it did support XP I can help you out with a Dell OEM Windows XP Professional CD.

Ron

 

[Exo]

I'd go with windows 2000 for a system like that. Pretty much "xp-like" but with less demanding system-requirements so it'll run fine on the old box.

You should be able to pick up a copy pretty cheap 2ndhand.
If it'll be actually usefull is doubtfull, internet content itself becomes more demanding - a 10yr old box will have trouble displaying most webpages simply because the tiniest animated commercial banner eats 100% cpu.

 

[BrownOut]

a 10yr old box will have trouble displaying most webpages simply because the tiniest animated commercial banner eats 100% cpu.

Is there not someway to trun that crap off?

 

[Exo]

Yes, off course - but many sites use animations and other multimedia as content these days, you'll be surprised how badly a older pc handles this...

Don't even think about a youtube video for example, but i guess visiting electro-tech-online should work fine ^^

 

[jolt2]

BrownOut, if you use Firefox web browser, you can control such things with free add in extensions. Some popular extensions for Firefox are Ad-Bloc, Customize Google, Better Privacy, FlashBlock, and NoScrip. Ad-Bloc and FlashBlock should do it for you. I have used this for years from back when I had dialup service.

Old operating systems just run better with old programs and old hardware, after all, it was made to work together. Wireless networking ME with a USB adapter should not be hard if the adapter supports Windows ME. You may have better luck picking up an old adapter from Ebay. I know the Microsoft MN-710 Wireless USB 2.0 Adapter will work with ME. This is long out of production and no support for years now as Microsoft has gotten out of networking products years ago.

 

[Reloadron]

Yes, off course - but many sites use animations and other multimedia as content these days, you'll be surprised how badly a older pc handles this...

Don't even think about a youtube video for example, but i guess visiting electro-tech-online should work fine ^^

I tend to disagree a little with that and here is why. Ten years ago I built a system then using the Pentium III Coppermine chip. The speed was 733 MHz of the processor and that system would run and play DVD movies just fine running a Windows 98 OS. Today that ancient system lives and is used by my six year old granddaughter. It still plays her little DVD movies just fine and it also plays U tube videos just fine. The only difference between streaming video then and now is the bandwidth (download speed) to load the video. Streaming video requires bandwidth and not processing power as long as the processor is adequate and if a 733 MHz Intel PIII can run it the graphics processing power required isn't that much. The trick with U tube or any streaming video is getting the data from point A to point B so it can play and that is a function of download speed much more than processing power.

Do animations, flash files (banners) and endless large file size images on a web page slow the time it takes the page to load? Yes, absolutely. Any combination of things embedded in a web page will add to the time it takes a browser to load the page. The more content in a page, the longer it takes the browser to load the page which makes sense. Loading a page is not as much a function of processing power as it is a function of bandwidth.

Years ago webmasters and web designers took the time and effort to make sure web pages were not only compatible with all the popular browsers of the time but the overall file size of the pages were kept where someone with a 56k modem running at 35k on dial up could load and view the pages in a timely fashion. Somewhere along the way that art was lost and today it seems the web designers pay little attention to page load times and assume the world is all on broadband internet connections with >5 mega bits per second download speeds.

Browsers do have options where the user can enable or disable certain options. They vary depending on browser but settings allow for disabling things like Flash Content, Animations and for that matter even images. The pages may look funny but the user can set things to their liking.

Ron

 

[BrownOut]

And not everyone needs to watch streaming video and animations. I spend very little of my internet time watching those. Who has the patience anyway? Not to mention the obligatory commercial, which is also a streaming video taking forever to start and run. I can still get my news, information and research results in print form, and have little use for the rest of it. I imagine a student with a hand-me-down laptop nees to check assignmets, collaborate with classmates and read ETO form time to time, and doesn't need all the time-wasters.

The day will probably come when everything is streaming video and anamation, and reading won't be an option. Dont' know what I'll do then, probably go back to newspapers.

 

[bryan1]

Dont' know what I'll do then, probably go back to newspapers.

Yea just imagine today trying to get a router to talk to a 64 bit puter, several times I reset the router but winblows 7 wouldn't see the change. It seems it doesn't matter how much one needs to upload hardware winblows will make it harder to use. I had an old laptop with ME on it and after '98 it did work great but it got swapped for a fluke 865 meter.

The way winblows is going on their quest to get rid of printed media what will we be left with.... a puter system that won't read the latest news as there is a driver problem

Go figure......................

 

[atferrari]

My laptop, just two weeks ago, connected through ADSL, allowed to enter all my usual forums and sites. It worked OK.

USB, by the way, works OK and was used all these years with good results.

Now, a PCMCIA adaptor communicates in WiFi. Left it in the hands of technical service to see why cannot get the link active.

It seems that I am one step from success.

 

[Exo]

it also plays U tube videos just fine.

Youtube underwent a facelift not too long ago, since then it seemed they changed the video compression because it now requires much more system resources. A pentium 3 733 cannot play most youtube video's anymore. I even have a athlon XP 2400+ that has the toughest time displaying most youtube video's...

DVD's are a diffirent story, that's MPEG2, even a pentium 2 can decode dvd in software.

A lot also has to do with RAM - Open a more modern webpage and take a look in taskmananger at how much ram is beeing used by the browser - you'll quickly hit 100megs these days. Since those old systems have only 128MB or 256MB of ram at the most harddisk swapping will start real quick , and when that starts you're watching a slideshow. And adding RAM is not an option in my opinon - old SDR memory is rather expensive and those old motherboards simply don't support much more then 256MB ram.

 

[Reloadron]

Youtube underwent a facelift not too long ago, since then it seemed they changed the video compression because it now requires much more system resources. A pentium 3 733 cannot play most youtube video's anymore. I even have a athlon XP 2400+ that has the toughest time displaying most youtube video's...

DVD's are a diffirent story, that's MPEG2, even a pentium 2 can decode dvd in software.

A lot also has to do with RAM - Open a more modern webpage and take a look in taskmananger at how much ram is beeing used by the browser - you'll quickly hit 100megs these days. Since those old systems have only 128MB or 256MB of ram at the most harddisk swapping will start real quick , and when that starts you're watching a slideshow. And adding RAM is not an option in my opinon - old SDR memory is rather expensive and those old motherboards simply don't support much more then 256MB ram.

When I get home from work today I'll have to check it out. The Net Nanny here has a thing about U Tube. Actually I am fortunate I can get into this place from work. The old system the granddaughter now still uses went to her with 768 MB of RAM but started with 256 MB. Thinking back maybe way back then it was PC100 or PC133. The board I think was Intel and would support a GB. Been awhile but maybe an 845 series Intel board.

Ron

 

[Reloadron]

Anyone got a link to a good U Tube video that I can use to test what Exo mentions? I have screwed with a few web pages noting memory use but those are boring.

Ron

 

[BrownOut]

Sure I got some, but tell your children to leave the room first

 

[Reloadron]

Sure I got some, but tell your children to leave the room first

Children? Hell, I worry about grandchildren.

Ron