Number 235 - November 2002

Installing USB on an Older PC
by Cass Lewart, Brookdale Computer Users Group
With so many peripherals now coming with a USB interface, I decided to upgrade my 4-year old 200 MHz Pentium class computer. At a recent Ken Gordon computer show, I noticed several vendors selling PCI/USB adapter cards priced between $15 and $20. Following my old maxim the cheaper, the better I sprang for a $15 Mod. KW-580 PCI to USB Controller card from Koutech Systems (www.koutech.com).     The card has no jumpers or switches and is Windows plug-and-play compatible. I plugged the card into a free PCI slot in my computer and rebooted. Windows 98 came up (oh yes, you need either	Windows 98 or Windows 95 with a service pack for USB to work!). I was prompted to insert the Windows 98 CD, the computer extracted the required USB drivers, and this was it! When I looked into the Device Manager in the Control Panel, I now had a new entry: Universal Serial Bus Controller.     I now have two USB jacks in back of my computer. I already used one jack to connect an Intel camera a friend gave me for my birthday. It works great.     Copyright Brookdale Computer Users Group
Number 235 - November 2002