[TenTec] Help me, I'm dumb.

[geoffrey mendelson]

On May 19, 2009, at 6:06 PM, Dr. Gerald N. Johnson wrote:
> There has nearly always been serial to parallel converters. Both  
> work in
> 1 byte chunks because RS-232 serial is usually asynchronous and has 3
> handshakes for hardware handshaking. The vintage parallel port has 8
> bits out and four back in its classic form but more recent hardware  
> can
> change the output register (its TTL levels all the way to the printer)
> to an input register for relatively slow bidirectional data, often  
> used
> with a scanner. USB works both ways, I don't know about the USB to
> parallel cables. With several computers not supporting USB, I've  
> looked
> at seeing if one will work parallel to USB, but haven't spent the time
> and money to find out. Fortunately I found a laser printer (HP 2550L)
> with both USB and parallel ports which I believe was the last one  
> made.
> I bought it at an Office Depot off their demonstrator shelf and will
> soon have to replace some color cartridges but its run maybe three  
> years
> for me on the original small ones.

I've gotten around that the "easy" way. With several computers here, I  
have one running a modern version of Linux and CUPS. The computers  
connect to it and the CUPS software handles translation from  
postscript if needed, and queueing, so more than one person can print  
at the same time and the jobs are kept seperate.

At one point had was part of a hardware/software design effort and we  
had connected to various CUPS servers laser and inkjet printers  
upstairs where we live, a laser and inkjet printers and an HP plotter  
downstairs where I worked, and an inkjet printer at a remote location  
via a VPN. The printers and plotter were a mixture of serial, parallel  
and USB.

> Vista has not achieved universal acceptability because of its demand  
> for
> new hardware and lack of support of working legacy hardware like  
> serial
> and parallel ports, plus the need for replacement of nearly all the
> applications software with accompanying retraining and cost. It may  
> not
> be the best OS for using applications created for the fun and not by a
> huge committee with access to the resources needed to meet Vista
> interface requirements which means it may not be good for ham
> applications at all.


One of the "features" of Vista was that it did not have hardware  
support for old devices and programing support for some of the older  
versions of Windows. It was designed with buying everything new. I've  
stuck with XP and still have my copies of WordStar 3.3 (PC DOS version  
of a CP/M program circa 1980) and WordPerfect 4.2 (circa 1986), both  
of which I use about once a year.

Most new computers do not come with serial or parallel ports nor  
floppy drives. New radios will have to come with USB or Ethernet ports  
for computer control (doesn't the Omni 7 have an ethernet port?)

Either that or the hot topic on 2m will be keeping old computers  
running.

Geoff.

-- 
geoffrey mendelson N3OWJ/4X1GM
Jerusalem Israel geoffreymendelson at gmail.com