Re: new laptop with parallel port for a parallel dot matrix printer?

PiErre wrote:
Hi,
I have to help a friend of mine to move
from an old desktop (with win95 and
a legacy program that have to print multiple-copy
chemical forms with condensed ascii cha on an old
dot-matrix 136-columns Brothers printer)
to a new laptop (he doesn't want to buy
an used one). The legacy program works in
any environment from DOS to
winXP - the only issue is that it pretend to access
the printer on LPT1.
Implementing the trick of the usb-to-centronic
adapter and automapping the shared printer as LPT1
worked for simple instraction like

dir > LPT1

but result in error when I tried to access it with
the legacy program (I tested it on my own laptop).

There are several issues here.
Older programs used to write hardware registers directly.
If that's the case, you won't be able to use a usb adapter.
If the program has a driver, you might be able to make something
work by messing around in XP compatibility mode.

Even with a real parallel port, XP is not gonna let you write
the ports driectly. There are several workarounds for this.
I like "userportxp". That works around the OS protection,
but still may not fix your problem, depending on the quirks
of the program. VERIFY this works before you drop the
big bux on the laptop.


You can print to file or export into another format that
can be read by a newer program then printed. This works
best if XP thinks it has a driver for your printer.

Just try print to file then copy the file to lpt1.
If that works, there exists a program that monitors
a directory and if anything shows up there, it performs
an operation on it...like print it. But don't remember
where I saw it. Was a long time ago, so may not be compatible
with newer OS.

A docking station designed for your laptop with real
hardware support might work. Beware that universal usb
docking stations have the same problem as your usb adapter.

The printer is not portable. Why a laptop?
Would be cheaper, about 1100 euros cheaper, to put a
desktop on the printer and import the things you want
to print.

mike

I found out that HP still sells NC6320 with the
parallel port. The pre-sale assistant that I called
from one side confirmed me that the system is
certified even with freedos, but on the other side
could not guarantee me that the printer will be
accessible as LPT1 (even though I think there
will be no issue in that)

my questions are:

1) that system is quite expensive...
and for more than 1100 euros
is shipped only with a shared-memory
intel graphic 950 chipset
is there any cheap alternative

2)
the obsolete legacy program can also print
to file. Could be more easy to write my own
"printer driver" that could detect print-to-file document
and send them to the printer after instructing it to
use condensed ascii chars?

3)
Can a docking station for a parallelport-less
laptop provide LPT1 facility to the old program?

TIA!

bye,
PiErre



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