I am using a PL-2305 cable and I am trying to get it to work under MS-DOS 6.22.

I was wondering if there were any registers that I write to on the device when I am doing transfers like I would with a normal parallel port? Any other info would help too - (USB stack info, etc... ) thanks -

 

USB isn't supported under DOS, it didn't appear till well after DOS had finished. It's also probably complex enough to make a DOS implementation too difficult to consider.

It's a pretty bizarre request really? - on a similar thought to wanting to play a DVD on a wind-up phonograph!.

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PIC programmer software, and PIC Tutorials at:
http://www.winpicprog.co.uk

 

If it's an option, you might be able to use DOSBox under Windows. I have to run a DOS app for an older ECU and have to communicate with it over a USB serial cable. It works well.

I've never even looked at parallel port support, but it may work out.

http://dosbox.sourceforge.net

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Mark Higgins

 

"on a similar thought to wanting to play a DVD on a wind-up phonograph!."

haha... well thanks for the laugh, but seriously

what a customer requested was that they have some custom hardware that is connected via parallel port to a pc. The pc is booted into dos and an application is run on immediate startup that sends a signal over the parallel port (this needs to be done in like less than 15 seconds - otherwise it could boot windows or linux and run )... As newer system (particuarly servers) are coming in we are finding that there is no parallel port, so I was looking into the difficulty of using a USB-to-Parallel connector and hacking dos a little bit to get some limited USB access....

Also, this is also legacy software that is not going to be fun to port over to another o/s because it has all kinds of dos specific code (although it is going to have to be at some time).... I realize that DOS does not support USB but I had heard that there were some people working on DOS USB Stacks that would allow limited USB device access...

All I really need to do is set a bit and send the result out...

 

I would suggest you start porting! - as you say it's got to be done one day, and I think that time is VERY close. A short term measure might be to fit a parallel port in the PC (assuming it's not a laptop)? - but make sure you get one that will work under DOS, which might be troublesome?.

For that matter, simply use an old PC, there are thousands been thrown away that would be perfect for your old DOS applications (I've thrown loads away here! - just from home!).

Nothing is simple with USB, that's the problem!.

__________________
PIC programmer software, and PIC Tutorials at:
http://www.winpicprog.co.uk

 

There are add on PCI cards with Serial and Parrallel I/O ports on them as well, if for some reason you are wanting to keep your old hardware for some reason. They are relatively expensive now, but it should work like an onboard port.

Like Nigel mentioned though, it's time to port, or just go with an older PC/laptop.

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Mark Higgins