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fsarran

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18 years ago

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fsarran

1 Message

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8272

October 10th, 2008 21:00

Parallel ports

I am migrating some of my old programs. Oner of my oldest requires thatr you configure your printer witht he port and yes escape codes. The problem is that my Vostro 200 has no parallel or seriel ports. The program does not know from USB. Is there any work around to this. I remember many years ago plugging in parallel or serial ports into extension slots on the mother board. Any help would be appreciated. Right now all I can do is print screen and paste to word   ugh!.
  • ahgreenberg

    16 Posts

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    0

    Posted October 12th, 2008 18:00

    You have a few choices:

     

    1) Buy a parallel interface card as you mentioned.  They aer still available.  If you have an available PCI slot, see:  StarTech card from Dell  Others, including PCI express versions, available  Here.

     

    2) If your current printer supports escape codes (maybe HP-PCL escape sequences)  You might be able to print to it by sharing it a a network printer and using the following instructions to capture an LPT port and forward the print joob to it.  See: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314499

     

    3)  A commerical product like PrintFil  seems like it should be an easy solution to help migration.  I have never used it, so I can't give it a thumbs up or down, but it seems to do everything you want and they offer a free trial.  It should make it easier to navigate the process of printing from an old MS-DOS style program to a modern day printer.  

     

    Hope this helpful.