Older laptop question, if anyone is still here.

[russ]

I had posted this on another site, and figured that I may still have a
better chance of getting an answer here. If anyone is still hanging
out here.
But hey, at least it isn't another job post. :-)
Although pending an interview I have this Saturday afternoon, I could
be doing one of them too. Engineering tech for a start up company here
in Akron, formed by a couple of retired Cisco people. I don't know
much more yet, they haven't even told the recruiter what product they
are looking to do. It is wireless though. The job is supposed to be
similar to the Cisco job from last summer. Oops, this did turn out to
be a job post too. :-)

I know enough about laptops to know that I would prefer to avoid them,
at least if I am the one paying for it. And even most of my desktop
knowledge is probably 5 years old. I just haven't been keeping up like
I used to when I was chasing the latest and greatest. This computer I
am using is over 3 years old, and I haven't done anything at all
internally to it since I built it back then.

For some reason, however, a co-worker asked me a question about his
laptop today.
Seems he has one built prior to the USB introduction. He says he just
has a serial port. I don't know brand, or if it even has a parallel
port as well. He is wanting to know if there is anything he can get to
add USB to his laptop. He wants to get some files off of it, and all
he has is a floppy drive.

I did a Google search, and didn't find anything going from serial to
USB. Found lots going the other way, but that won't help him.

Anyone have any thoughts, or is he out of luck? Oh, yeah. Probably
needs to be fairly cheap. Taking it to a data recovery place would be
a tad too much. :-)

Thanks,
russ

[Todd Rich]

russ <***@juno.com> wrote:
(snip)

Post by russ
For some reason, however, a co-worker asked me a question about his
laptop today.
Seems he has one built prior to the USB introduction. He says he just
has a serial port. I don't know brand, or if it even has a parallel
port as well. He is wanting to know if there is anything he can get to
add USB to his laptop. He wants to get some files off of it, and all
he has is a floppy drive.

(snorp)

Does he have a PCMCIA slot on the laptop? There are plenty of cheap
PCMCIA to USB cards out there.

Also, you should be able to find a laptop drive adapter for about $15
where you can take the drive out of the laptop and plug it into a standard
IDE cable and use it in a desktop computer.

[Robert Machado]

Post by Todd Rich
(snip)

Post by russ
For some reason, however, a co-worker asked me a question about his
laptop today.
Seems he has one built prior to the USB introduction. He says he just
has a serial port. I don't know brand, or if it even has a parallel
port as well. He is wanting to know if there is anything he can get to
add USB to his laptop. He wants to get some files off of it, and all
he has is a floppy drive.

(snorp)
Also, you should be able to find a laptop drive adapter for about $15
where you can take the drive out of the laptop and plug it into a standard
IDE cable and use it in a desktop computer.

I'm not a technical person, so I cannot address this dilema, but for a
non-techie like me, I'd find a way to do this. The first thing that pops
into my mind if sending the files via email. It's not efficient, and I
don't know how many files the person wants to get off the laptop, but even
if I had a dial-up connection (we also have a very old laptop that does not
have a USB port, although it's in storage instead of the dumpster for some
reason), I would send them via email. If there were a lot of files, I'd set
it up right before I went o bed and cross my fingers.

As old as our laptop is, is does have one of the slots that Todd mentioned.
We were able to set this up on our wireless network, so with a bit of
knowledge, could this not be networked so that you could move the files with
Windows Explorer?

Just a couple of thoughts on a Saturday morning in Monterey.

Rob

[Paul Wylie]

russ <***@juno.com> wrote:
[...]

Post by russ
For some reason, however, a co-worker asked me a question about his
laptop today.
Seems he has one built prior to the USB introduction. He says he just
has a serial port. I don't know brand, or if it even has a parallel
port as well. He is wanting to know if there is anything he can get to
add USB to his laptop. He wants to get some files off of it, and all
he has is a floppy drive.
I did a Google search, and didn't find anything going from serial to
USB. Found lots going the other way, but that won't help him.
Anyone have any thoughts, or is he out of luck? Oh, yeah. Probably
needs to be fairly cheap. Taking it to a data recovery place would be
a tad too much. :-)

Jayzus that laptop is old. Every laptop made in the last 10 years has had
at least a USB 1.x port on it. If he's looking to get a few small files
off it, the cheapest option is to use dialup networking to get on a
connection that he can use to email or ftp the files.

If he wants to get a lot of files moved permanently to a new home, and
he's not looking to re-use the laptop for anything, I'd pull the hard
drive out (on most laptops, this is ridiculously easy) and put it in an
external USB enclosure. USB enclosures for 2.5" laptop drives aren't that
expensive. NewEgg shows them starting at $12 including shipping. The
cheapest one that scored a 5 egg rating was about $22 including shipping.

If he's looking to keep using the laptop for some reason, a PCMCIA
wireless card is probably a good option. Fry's Electronics occasionally
has their Airlink ones for $10 apiece or less.

Check Craig's List to see if somebody's giving away anything you can use
to get that data off the laptop. Maybe an old serial null-modem cable, or
parallel-to-parallel cable. Windows used to have an option to transfer
data between two PCs using the parallel port and a special cable.

--Paul
** Note "removemunged" in email address and remove to reply. **

[russ]

Well, I talked to the guy today. Seems we had a minor
miscommunication.
He has a PCMCIA (or whatever it is) slot. I didn't realise that. He
told me he had a place to plug in the modem, I was thinking phone
jack.
Anyways, lots of USB options for that, so that is what he is doing.


Thanks, all.
russ

[Todd Rich]

Post by russ
Well, I talked to the guy today. Seems we had a minor
miscommunication.
He has a PCMCIA (or whatever it is) slot. I didn't realise that. He
told me he had a place to plug in the modem, I was thinking phone
jack.
Anyways, lots of USB options for that, so that is what he is doing.
Thanks, all.
russ

Glad to help. And while it isn't while it isn't the official acronym, the
easy way to remember it is:

People
Can't
Memorize
Computer
Industry
Acronyms