VMware Communities: Message List - How does one redirect a USB<->Parallel cable to enable use of Parallel port device (W2K/Fusion/MacBook Pro)?

Re: How does one redirect a USB<->Parallel cable to enable use of Parallel port device (W2K/Fusion/MacBook Pro)?

asatoran — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 16:58:58 GMT

Ok, if it DID work, how would one redirect the USB/Printer port to mimick a printer port (LPT1/2/3..)?

If it did work on a physical machine, you wouldn't need to do anything, as the software for the USB parallel adapter would normally present LPT2 (or whatever) to WIndows.

...The Xeltek Eprom Programmer is only a few years old (late 90s)and the operating software goes up to XP, but it REALLY wants to find it at a printer port. It seems to me that there should be some way to communicate with the USB/Printer cable, but I simply have no clue with USA protocols at this time.

The issue is that these USB adapters generally only work with printers. Sometimes scanners and cameras, whose software fiddle with the handshaking lines. But nothing that tries to access the parallel port UART chip directly.

Do a search for parallel port dongles on these forums (such as this one ) and you'll see that you're in a similar situation. And these dongles are often for multi-thousand dollar software so it's no small matter either. The dongle users are sometimes lucky to be able to get a USB version of the dongle. That may be your only realistic solution (i.e.: replacing the programmer), other than finding an old PC.

Realize that the "few years old programmer from the late nineties" is actually a decade old. (We're now near the end of the first decade of the 21st century!) While the software may have worked in Windows XP, it's likely that it was a 16-bit program designed for Windows 3.1, that the company was just lucky to have still work through Win9x, 2k & XP. And using parallel ports for non-printing is really technology from the 80s. So the design of the programmer is more like 20 years old, not "just a few years." I know that doesn't help you're situation, but just trying to get some perspective.

Re: How does one redirect a USB<->Parallel cable to enable use of Parallel port device (W2K/Fusion/MacBook Pro)?

woodmeister — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 09:45:40 GMT

You may be out of luck on this one, if the software is written to access the device
on a "legacy" physical parallel port. In those cases, they actually directly access the
microprocessors I/O space addresses. If that is so, there is no way whatsoever
to use the device either on a virtual machine or even a physical machine that has
no parallel port. Been there. Done that. No luck.

Re: How does one redirect a USB<->Parallel cable to enable use of Parallel port device (W2K/Fusion/MacBook Pro)?

JRRFlippers — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 05:48:30 GMT

Ok, if it DID work, how would one redirect the USB/Printer port to mimick a printer port (LPT1/2/3..)? The Xeltek Eprom Programmer is only a few years old (late 90s)and the operating software goes up to XP, but it REALLY wants to find it at a printer port. It seems to me that there should be some way to communicate with the USB/Printer cable, but I simply have no clue with USA protocols at this time.

Thanks so far!

John :-#)#

Re: How does one redirect a USB<->Parallel cable to enable use of Parallel port device (W2K/Fusion/MacBook Pro)?

asatoran — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 01:16:30 GMT

Many of these parallel port devices try to access the UART chip directly. This is not (usually) possible with USB parallel adapters. And I suspect that your programmer is doing such.

If the programmer, attached to the USB adapter, works on some other Windows machine. (non-virtual) then it would likely work in a virtual machine. But if this programmer was built more than 10 years ago, particularly before windows 95 and if it's software is DOS based, it's likely not going to work with the USB adapter, and thus not work in a virtual machine.

How does one redirect a USB<->Parallel cable to enable use of Parallel port device (W2K/Fusion/MacBook Pro)?

JRRFlippers — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 23:49:49 GMT

I have a Parallel Port Eprom programmer that I would love to be able to access under Fusion, however my USB/Parallel Port cable only shows up as "USB2.0-PRINT" and I can't figure out how to access it via the software for my Eprom burner (Xeltek).

I have experimented with a couple of USB redirection programs including DOS2USB, and PrintFil with no success as they only want to redirect your LPT port to the 'USB' printer. Also tried USB Redirector - and while it found my USB adapter, it does not allow one to reassign it to a LPT port.

Any clues?

Thanks!

John :-#)#