PC Hardware Development 1987-1998

[gslick]

USB support on PIIX3 boards in 1996 was extremely hit or miss. They were most likely to work on an ATX or OEM proprietary board that had built in ports. Baby AT 430VX/HX boards generally lacked a header. If they had one, many times there was no setting to turn USB on in the BIOS!

The first boxes with PIIX3 USB that we got from Intel (if I remember right they were called PDK boxes, Platform Development Kit) were ATX form factor and had USB ports on the motherboard, but the BIOS did not enable the USB function. There was a batch file we ran that poked a bit in the PIIX3 PCI Function 0 Miscellaneous Status Register to enable the PCI Function 2 USB controller.

 

[Doug G]

Need a dongle for that thing? I've got a carton of NOS units that won't work on any of the other Inifinias (has the LCD display).

Thanks, but I have the original, if you're talking about the usb gizmo that hung under the monitor with the lcd and volume knob. The computer is in srotage anyway, it was working when I put it there 15 years ago or so. I also have two of the Toshiba multisync monitors that came with the Infinia, they are one of the nicest CRT monitors I ever used.

 

[Chuck(G)]

Yup. I was retained by by a major law firm representing Toshiba in an attempted class action. I got piles of maintenance records and all sorts of goodies. Since the machine involved in the claim was a 7230, I got a couple of those as well. The maintenance logs went to the shredder as they were company private.

Toshiba prevailed in the (stupid) action, but it took a couple of years.

 

[Doug G]

Yup. I was retained by by a major law firm representing Toshiba in an attempted class action. I got piles of maintenance records and all sorts of goodies. Since the machine involved in the claim was a 7230, I got a couple of those as well. The maintenance logs went to the shredder as they were company private.

Toshiba prevailed in the (stupid) action, but it took a couple of years.

I was quite satisfied with the 7160, it was my only computer from W95-W98se and performed well. My kids spent many hours on it playing various games like megaman, simcity, etc. I'm planning to try to bring it back to life some day, if you have any docs/parts that are for this model and want to part with anything I'd be interested. I don't know where the disk drive I used went, so I'm sure it would be an adventure in time travel for me to try to reinstall original W95 and subsequent upgrades.

 

[roberttx]

Apparently, season 3 of Halt And Catch Fire opens in 1986. It's catching up with the OP's timeline...

 

[brassicGamer]

How did I not know about this series?!! Thanks for the tip-off.

 

[Chuck(G)]

I was quite satisfied with the 7160, it was my only computer from W95-W98se and performed well. My kids spent many hours on it playing various games like megaman, simcity, etc. I'm planning to try to bring it back to life some day, if you have any docs/parts that are for this model and want to part with anything I'd be interested. I don't know where the disk drive I used went, so I'm sure it would be an adventure in time travel for me to try to reinstall original W95 and subsequent upgrades.

I think I still have copies of the CD-ROM pack that came with the system...found it (or at least most of it:

1. MS COA--probably for Win95 OSR2
2. Encarta
3. Get ready for school, Charlie Brown!
4. MS Golf
5. MS Works
6. Win95 Companion
7. Cover-up at Roswell (2 CDs)
8. Mechwarrior 2
9. Mayo Clinic Family Health
10. Quicken
11. Family Album Creator
12. Shanghai
13 Microsoft Plus!

That's just in one pack--I think I've got yet another one, as well as Win98 and Win98SE upgrade CDs.