Hi again,
somebody in another DOS forum pointed out that you can get ready
to use LPT2USB online, although expensive, from various shops:
https://www.future-x.de/rotronic-secomp-parallel-adapter-usb-ieee-1284-schwarz-p-7343484/
https://www.profishop.de/p/ak-nord-adapter-lpt-lpt2usb-v2-nt-202573
https://www.secomp.de/de/item/konverter-kabel-parallel-nach-usb/12021074
I also got the suggestion (once more) to use LAN for printing,
either with the evil MS CLIENT or by any other means. I guess
depending on the printer, a bit of NETCAT, CURL, WGET etc. may
be sufficient, or using a library like wattcp or (I forgot the
other names) directly in the DOS app.
Regards, Eric
Hi! Moving this topic to a new thread:
Next problem: I tried to get printer support via USB (currently they
use classic LPT, but those printers get very rare).
Asking around and looking around a bit, people have suggested to run DOS
inside vDOSplus, DOSBOX-X, DOSEMU2, VirtualBox and so on with a Linux or
Windows host operating system. I think when you run DOSBOX-X on DOS as
host, it would not support USB printers. But it could support HDA, AC97
soundchips and simulate SB16 for the DOS inside? Sounds very nice! :-)
Also, I wonder how Windows and Linux would react to those frequent power
loss related crashes of the whole computer. Probably not very amused?
Either way, I stumbled over a cool microcontroller based solution by
Henrik Haftmann, with free EAGLE PCB data and circuit diagram and the
corresponding firmware. Even an ultra low cost RS232 firmware install
method is part of the project :-)
https://www-user.tu-chemnitz.de/~heha/basteln/PC/USB2LPT/lpt2usb.de.htm
https://www-user.tu-chemnitz.de/~heha/basteln/PC/USB2LPT/lpt2usb.en.htm
Of course this is less superpowered than https://www.retroprinter.com/
mentioned earlier, based on a complete computer and able to convert old
DOS printer data to output even for GDI printers if I got that right?
The page also links some alternatives from other sources, but I found
ALL of the linked products in the Gibt's schon / re-invented section to
be no longer available. So better make some backup of Henrik's USB2LPT.
Cheers, Eric
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