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USB to Parallel Bridge

Started by djcaetano, 2011.04.02, 01:04:52

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djcaetano

Hello guys...
I am buying a new machine (brand new i7 2600 processor, 8GB of RAM, intel H67 based motherboard) and I hope to run eComStation 2 in this machine. It will be here by april 20, so I am only guessing if it will work.
In the mean time, since new motherboards do not offer any parallel ports (and I have an ancient LaserJet 5 which I do not want to let go) I started looking for alternative solutions... and I have just found a so-called "USB to Parallel Bridge". It is basically a cable, which connects to the parallel centronics connector at the printer and then to an USB port on the computer.
On Windows XP I just plugged it and it recognized the device... but on eCS... well, it seems to be detected... BUT when I install an USB port to the printer driver it says "there is no USB printers connected".

Anyone has any kind of experience with this kind of peripheral?

Thanks in advance!

RobertM

I have yet to find a USB to parallel bridge that works, but that does not mean they don't exist.

Another solution would be to pick up (they're really cheap) one of the HP etherjet adapters and run it via the network, which should work fine for the older HP machines (there are actually OS/2 drivers for them).

HTH,
Rob


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Kirk's 5 Year Mission Continues at:
Star Trek New Voyages
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ivan

Hi Daniel,

For your USB/parallel unit to work you need the parallel equivalent of USBCOM.SYS  - USBPAR.SYS?????

In some ways it is unfortunate you went the Intel route as there are several motherboards for the AMD processors that have both parallel and serial ports.  I've recently been through the process of building a couple of machines that required both parallel and serial ports.  Both machines have AMD multi core processors - one 4 core, the other 6 core, also both have 4 GB ram, could go to 16, because that is more than enough for their intended purpose.

Rob's idea of the HP etherjet adapter may be the only way that you will be able to run your printer, although if you have a NAS box with a USB printer port you might be able to use your adapter with that but the setup could be a pain.

ivan 

djcaetano

Quote from: ivan on 2011.04.02, 02:49:58
For your USB/parallel unit to work you need the parallel equivalent of USBCOM.SYS  - USBPAR.SYS?????

  Somewhere I've read USBPRT should work for USB/Parallel bridges (this bridge
only work with printers, even on Windows)... That's why I've asked.

Quote from: ivan on 2011.04.02, 02:49:58
In some ways it is unfortunate you went the Intel route as there are several motherboards for the AMD processors that have both parallel and serial ports.  I've recently been through the process of building a couple of machines that required both parallel and serial ports.  Both machines have AMD multi core processors - one 4 core, the other 6 core, also both have 4 GB ram, could go to 16, because that is more than enough for their intended purpose.

   Well, I went to Intel route for one single reason: every Intel motherboard I
have found is able to run eComStation in SMP mode... not quite the same
with MB for AMD processors (in fact, I have not found one yet). I know there
are boards which will work ok... but I was not in the mood for gambling.
(And it is not that easy to "select whatever board you want" in Brazil...
most motherboards simply cannot be found in the market).
   I am telling this because I am not a big fan of Intel processors and
chipsets - the computer where I am writing this is an ancient Athlon XP 2600+
on a ASUS board with nVidia chipset... which is still working nice. :)
It will become my backup hardware.

   I am trying just to take a safer route... which doesn't mean I'll be successful.
Heheheh... Maybe the new machine not even boots eComStation. :?

Quote from: ivan on 2011.04.02, 02:49:58
Rob's idea of the HP etherjet adapter may be the only way that you will be able to run your printer, although if you have a NAS box with a USB printer port you might be able to use your adapter with that but the setup could be a pain.

  Hummm... Well, I will try to find one. I have searched for a LaserJet 5 ethernet
adapter, but no luck so far. They are not common in Brazil, and whenever
someone has one to sell, it's not for less than 200 dollars.

  Anyway, my other printer, HP CP1515n, works very well through the network.
It would be nice do the same with HP LaserJet 5, too. :)

djcaetano

Quote from: RobertM on 2011.04.02, 02:13:51
I have yet to find a USB to parallel bridge that works, but that does not mean they don't exist.
Another solution would be to pick up (they're really cheap) one of the HP etherjet adapters and run it via the network, which should work fine for the older HP machines (there are actually OS/2 drivers for them).

  Hi Rob,

  Unfortunately, these adapters are not "that" easy to find here, in Brazil.
And they are not cheap for sure (in Brazil)... but, if it is the only way and
I had already lost 25 bucks on this damn useless bridge... :P

  Thanks anyway.

ivan

Hi Daniel,

My experience has been the opposite to you - AMD boards are the only ones that I've been able to get to work well with OS/2 WSeB SMP.  In fact just yesterday a client brought his new Acer computer to have OS/2 installed - It was one of the fastest installs I've done, OK, only 2 core and 2 GB ram with 500 BG hard disk.

You have to remember Rob is in the US where every thing for computers is cheep.  I was looking for one of the HP etherjet adapters for my 4L but found them expensive here in Europe as well - I finished up getting a print server from our local internet market for 35 euro.

As you say USBPRT should work but remember it pre-dates USB/parallel adapters.  I was fortunate to find a modified USBCOM on hobbes for the usb/serial adapters that are available here.

BTW your PM Download Center is still in use on all my machines - thanks.

ivan

Paul Smedley

Hi Daniel
Quote from: djcaetano on 2011.04.02, 01:04:52
Hello guys...
I am buying a new machine (brand new i7 2600 processor, 8GB of RAM, intel H67 based motherboard) and I hope to run eComStation 2 in this machine. It will be here by april 20, so I am only guessing if it will work.

I just bought the same processor, but I chose an Intel P67 based motherboard.  I have eCS 2 running, but currently not in a satisfactory manner.

Onboard LAN (Realtek R8111c) is not (yet) supported by the new eCS Realtek driver - although it is supported in the latest linux source, so it should be trivial to add support.

Sound is recognised by Uniaud 2.1.x but not Uniaud 1.9.x (due to higher ALSA version in 2.1.x)

SATA controller only works in generic mode until Danis506 is updated.

Widescreen activator doesn't recognise the CPU bridge but I'm in conversation with Robert Lalla on that issue and hope to have that resolved soon.

High IRQ loads are common - I believe this is due to system MTRR not being set correctly.  Unfortunately whilst Lars Erdmann has a utility to set MTRR's - it's currently failing here with:
GRADD.SYS returns error 65330 in IOCTL call GRADDPDD_QUERYMTRR.Cannot query MTRRs.

and Lars is very busy right now.

Once all the above is resolved it should be a nice system :)

Cheers,

Paul

djcaetano

Some news. I don't know how and why, but trying several times (plug and unplug) made eComStation recognize a new USB Printer Port, called "Prolific_IEEE_1284_Cont_1". Is it something (eComStation even created a Printer Icon "automagically"), which was reported to be "ONLINE" on the port propertied...

But no print when I send something to it (even selecting the correct printer driver for the object). The print job stays on the spooler forever. On the port properties I have found several config options for different delays... I'll do some more tests later.
For information, this is the bridge I bought: http://www.trendnet.com/products/proddetail.asp?prod=160_TU-P1284&cat=49. It uses a common controller ( http://www.prolific.com.tw/eng/products.asp?id=6 ) and there is a somewhat detailed datasheet for it: http://www.prolific.com.tw/eng/downloads.asp?ID=27.

Regards,
Daniel Caetano

ivan

Daniel, you did set up the printer to use a USB port and not a parallel one because with that adapter the printer becomes a USB printer as far as OS/2 is concerned.

ivan

djcaetano

  Hi Paul,

Quote from: Paul Smedley on 2011.04.02, 11:54:31
I just bought the same processor, but I chose an Intel P67 based motherboard.  I have eCS 2 running, but currently not in a satisfactory manner.
Onboard LAN (Realtek R8111c) is not (yet) supported by the new eCS Realtek driver - although it is supported in the latest linux source, so it should be trivial to add support.

 The board I bought (this one: http://www.intel.com/products/desktop/motherboards/db-DH67CL/DH67CL-overview.htm ) seems to use a IntelĀ® 82579V based ethernet, I hope it can be supported soon by eCS drivers (some flavors of 8257x are supported).

Quote from: Paul Smedley on 2011.04.02, 11:54:31
Sound is recognised by Uniaud 2.1.x but not Uniaud 1.9.x (due to higher ALSA version in 2.1.x)

This one has ALC892. Dunno if it'll work, probably not.

Quote from: Paul Smedley on 2011.04.02, 11:54:31
SATA controller only works in generic mode until Danis506 is updated.
Widescreen activator doesn't recognise the CPU bridge but I'm in conversation with Robert Lalla on that issue and hope to have that resolved soon.
High IRQ loads are common - I believe this is due to system MTRR not being set correctly.  Unfortunately whilst Lars Erdmann has a utility to set MTRR's - it's currently failing here with:
GRADD.SYS returns error 65330 in IOCTL call GRADDPDD_QUERYMTRR.Cannot query MTRRs.
and Lars is very busy right now.
Once all the above is resolved it should be a nice system :)

 Well, at least there is some chance of improvement in the future. :)

 I selected H67 board for two reasons: 3x common PCI slots, which allows me to bring some of my old (and eCS supported hardware) like SBLive 5.1 (if onboard sound do not work), BT video capture board and PCI SCSI adapter for my Vista S6E Scanner. I'll have a problem if network AND sound do not work... (so, I really hope there is a way to use the onboard ethernet... hehehe).

 Thanks for the feedback. I tried to look at hardware database on OS/2.ru, but I found it is not very friendly if you do not want to read ALL the reports... some search filters would be great there.  :)

 Regards,

 Daniel Caetano

djcaetano

Quote from: ivan on 2011.04.02, 16:42:20
Daniel, you did set up the printer to use a USB port and not a parallel one because with that adapter the printer becomes a USB printer as far as OS/2 is concerned.

  Yup! But spooler acts as if the printer is offline (even though the USB port says it is online).

  Daniel.

djcaetano

Quote from: ivan on 2011.04.02, 11:20:34
My experience has been the opposite to you - AMD boards are the only ones that I've been able to get to work well with OS/2 WSeB SMP.  In fact just yesterday a client brought his new Acer computer to have OS/2 installed - It was one of the fastest installs I've done, OK, only 2 core and 2 GB ram with 500 BG hard disk.

  Ah, well, my experience with SMP is on eCS and ACPI... I'll forward this info to a friend who has 3 or 4 AMD multicore computers which simply do not run OS/2/eCS (Opterons and newer processors).

Quote from: ivan on 2011.04.02, 11:20:34
You have to remember Rob is in the US where every thing for computers is cheep.  I was looking for one of the HP etherjet adapters for my 4L but found them expensive here in Europe as well - I finished up getting a print server from our local internet market for 35 euro.

  You gave me a nice idea, Ivan. A print server may be the way to go! :)
  Any remarks? My HP CL1515n is being used with the help of LPD, mapped on port LPT2... it should be nice to acquire a print server that works the same way. :)

Quote from: ivan on 2011.04.02, 11:20:34
BTW your PM Download Center is still in use on all my machines - thanks.

   Cool! :) From time to time I think I should rewrite the whole thing... But had not found the time yet.
   There are several other projects in the pipeline (SDL MSX Emulator almost ready, ZX Spectrum
emulator - both with complete sound, p7zip, a new version of Squeak/2, an utility to use Floppy
Driver Emulators (using SD-Cards) and a utility to generate/extract DSK files)...  :P

  Regards,

  Daniel Caetano

rudi

Quote from: djcaetano on 2011.04.02, 17:03:27
There are several other projects in the pipeline   ...  p7zip

If the versions found here http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/h-search.php?sh=1&button=Search&key=p7zip
don't work for you: I think I can make 9.20 available on Monday night when I'm back on the other computer...

djcaetano

Quote from: rudi on 2011.04.02, 18:50:28
If the versions found here http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/h-search.php?sh=1&button=Search&key=p7zip
don't work for you: I think I can make 9.20 available on Monday night when I'm back on the other computer...

  Hi, Rudi,

  I was working on it in july 2010... didn't know you had ported it. :)
  As a matter of fact, the only thing missing in my port was the DLL part... I was
not able to build a working DLL. I'll peek into your code and learn something. :)

   Thanks for your work. :)

RobertM

Quote from: djcaetano on 2011.04.02, 01:04:52
Hello guys...
I am buying a new machine (brand new i7 2600 processor, 8GB of RAM, intel H67 based motherboard) and I hope to run eComStation 2 in this machine. It will be here by april 20, so I am only guessing if it will work.
In the mean time, since new motherboards do not offer any parallel ports (and I have an ancient LaserJet 5 which I do not want to let go) I started looking for alternative solutions... and I have just found a so-called "USB to Parallel Bridge". It is basically a cable, which connects to the parallel centronics connector at the printer and then to an USB port on the computer.
On Windows XP I just plugged it and it recognized the device... but on eCS... well, it seems to be detected... BUT when I install an USB port to the printer driver it says "there is no USB printers connected".

Anyone has any kind of experience with this kind of peripheral?

Thanks in advance!


So sorry for my senility (and lack of time to dig one up for you sooner). It's called a JetDirect card. Here's one for the LJ5 from a US seller that ships and sells internationally:

http://cgi.ebay.com/HP-Laserjet-4-5-5M-5Si-JetDirect-Ethernet-Network-Card-/290551038113?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item43a63100a1#ht_879wt_905



|
|
Kirk's 5 Year Mission Continues at:
Star Trek New Voyages
|
|