On Thu, 28 Mar 2002 04:26:06 +1200, David Empson wrote: > Jalapeno wrote: > >> In article <1f9oewf.1r0d7lkfox8g0N%dempson@actrix.gen.nz>, >> dempson@actrix.gen.nz (David Empson) wrote: >> >> > Stepan Hluchan wrote: >> > >> > > You're all giving good advice...I want to go from serial (in the printer) >> > > toi parallel (in the pc).... question is if I'll get it working :-) >> > >> > Highly unlikely. I doubt that there are any products which allow a >> > serial peripheral to be attached to a parallel port, since there is zero >> > market for them (you can easily install serial ports into most PCs). >> >> Is this what you mean? >> >> >> >> It is a parallel to serial converter. It works like this: >> >> +-+-+ begin ascii art +-+-+ >> >> >> +------+ +--------+ >> | | +---------+ | | >> | PC O>>----------->O HPS-100 O>>---------->O serial | >> | | | | | printer| >> +------+ +---------+ +--------+ >> Parallel Centronics RS232 >> to to to >> Centronics RS232 Din 8? >> cable converter cable >> >> +-+-+ end ascii art +-+-+ > > I stand corrected. (Well, sit actually.) > > I can see some justifcation for this sort of product with very old PCs, > as they commonly had parallel ports, but serial ports weren't as common > until later. There were also other old non-PC computers, like the > Amstrad CPC464 (?), which had parallel ports but no serial ports (and no > way to add them). On the other hand, serial printers were relatively > uncommon in the old days - they became more popular with the rise of the > Macintosh. Around the mid 80s there were lots of parallel to serial converters (and vice versa) published in Elektor, Popular Electronics, Radio Electronics, Electronics Today International etc. Most used a 6402 UART. If you can find 6402 application notes on the Internet you could probably knock a converter together quite quickly. > > Nowadays there doesn't seem much point using such an adaptor, unless you > don't have any spare serial ports and can't add more. I would expect a > two port ISA serial card to be cheaper than an external adaptor. (PCI > might be a different story.) -- Why make things easy when you can make them complicated!