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[rbudrick]

SUBJECT TITLE CHANGED TO REFELECT NEW NEED. HOPE YOU CAN HELP!


Hi Folks,

After trying every possible combination of cables, LPT port settings, various PCs and several copiers, I have come to the conclusion that my parallel port sucks for most of these old devices (and some new, like CopyNES).

I want to buy a new parallel port card (PCI). What I am looking for is compatibility, obviously. I must work in all port settings (ECP, EPP, ECP+EPP, etc., etc.). It also must work in WIn98 and XP. Can anyone reccomend one that they know works with say, GDSF7, MGD1, CopyNES, FDSLoadr. Yeah, I know, few of you have used all of those, heh heh. Any advice you could offer though is much appreciated. I've heard some chipsets or brands work better than others, but I dunno.

I am also looking for a PCMCIA card for my Win 98 laptop with all the same above features (only has to do Win 98, though). My laptop as is does NOT have an EPP mode, and there is no BIOS. Some old Compaqs were stupid...the BIOS was a soft bios held on a seperate partition that is impossible to restore w/o wiping the drive. You also have to be a Martian and have 12 hands to do it. Any PCMCIA card must be configurable to run true EPP, ECP, etc. without going into a real BIOS.

I know this thread is a longshot, but I'm kind of desperate at this point.

Thanks!

-Rob

[Ruger]

You probably need more luck than a good parallel card to get all of those to work I have four computers for dev items. The MGD1 works fine with a Dell laptop (pentium m, 1.7GHz) in SPP mode. The fdsloadr works fine with a custom ASUS based PIII 700 MHz in SPP mode. These have been tricky to get to work.

The CopyNES I use with an old Compaq PII. Believe the parallell port is in ECP/EPP mode. Worked on first try. Not sure if that was luck.

I am pretty happy with this card. Works fine with Win98:
http://www.siig.com/product.asp?pid=148&catid=97

Check out the manual

Ruger

[rbudrick]

[rbudrick]

Hi Folks,

Well, I've got a new card (a Startech single port parallel pci), and got it installed but I can't get it to do much.

I think it has a lot to do with the fact that I can't change it's port settings. When I look at the Resources tab for the port in the Device Manager, it tells me nothing about what port it's using (378h, 3BCh, 278h, etc), but running a DOS command tells me it is using 3BCh. I also don't know what IRQ it's using, as the resources tab conveniently leaves this info out.

I want to force this card to be my primary LPT1, and I CAN change it to LPT1, but can't change it's port settings. I disabled the onboard port, reinstalled this card, but nada. Infact, when I reenable the onboard port it too thinks it is LPT1, and I have to go into it's properties and change it to LPT2 manually just to insure no conflicts happen.

If I go into the resources tab of the card to uncheck "Use automatic setting," I can't because it's grayed out.

In fact, if my onboard port is enabled and I change it in the bios for that port to be 3BCh and not 378h, when I reboot, XP doesn't give a crap what the BIOS says, and it puts it on 378h no matter what. I'm perfectly happy with getting rid of that port altogether, but this card will not function for devices it used to, and I'm pretty sure it has everything to do with the port and IRQ settings.

Can anyone offer some advice? Should I get rid of this damn card and go with another?

Thanks!

-Rob