OT: <was springfield> <is data transfer via parallel port off old systems>

[Chuck Guzis]

On 8/2/2006 at 3:46 PM Roy J. Tellason wrote:

>I can't speak to the reliability of it,  but it did indeed have a parallel

>option,  which of course required a different special cable.  Never used
>it here though.

I have a Laplink "octopus" (well, a sexapus, anyway), one DB9 female, DB25
female and DB25 male on each end.  Handles both serial and parallel
"nibble" transfers.  The thing will also work wtih the Microsoft Interlink.

If you've got a bidirectional printer port on the receiving PC, there's no
software handshake necessary--the sender asserts STROBE and the receiver
acknowledges it with ACK.  In this case, SCO can't tell the receiving PC
from a plain old parallel interface printer.  Transfers are 8 bits at a
time.

If you fool much with vintage PC's with parallel ports, you really should
have some capture software kicking around-.  Often, the printer port is the
easiest and fastest way to get data out of a system that has no other
networking capability.

Anent that, I still have a copy and manual for "The $25 network" that
imprelments rather primitive peer-to-peer printer and serial port
networking over DOS.

Cheers,
Chuck