Parallel port on a XP PRO Machine

[DYNAGOD]

I work in a machine shop and we use an old DOS program called Easytalk to communicate with our CNC machines on the shop floor.
this program is ancient and has no support.. its essntially just a beefed up hyperterminal with file management.
The powers that be wanted to upgrade the entire shops PC's and bought a XP pro machine for the machine shop.
Clearly this old DOS program does not like the XP enviroment.
Its designed to use a Standard Parallel Port (SSP) configuration and uses
SSI_ACT=50,50,50 in the autoexec.bat.
now xp pro uses a Enhanced Serial Port (ESP)by default and has no option to reinstall with a Standard Serial Port,plus no autoexec..
becasue of this, the Hardware protection module that plugs into the parallel port and enables the software cant be read, so the software comes up with a security warning and shuts down the program.
Does anyone know of a way to configure a Parallel port to SSP or where i can find a SSP driver?

[tmasman]

Is the hardware key a "Sentinel"?
There are XP drivers for them floating around in the net. We use some windows based software to run our latest CNC machine  (although it looks like it came from the Win 3.1 days) on an XP machine & it uses an old hardware key called a "Sentinel".

Anyhow, look around for drivers on the net... If yours is a sentinel, let me know & I can email them to you.

Good luck!

[SirPeale]

You could always downgrade the machine to use DOS.  Or...radical concept here...go  back to using the old machine.  You know that old adage "if it's not broke, don't fix it"?  It certainly applies here.  Your 'upgrade' is causing downtime, which is costing the company money.  And I'm guessing that the use of the XP machine won't speed up the process of actually doing the work.

[PacManFan]

It's not just that application.

Under Windows NT,2000, and XP, The operating system doesn't allow applications to talk directly to the I/O ports. That means any DOS/Win95/Win98 program that trys to open the serial/parallel/ whatever ports directly without going through the API of the OS will bring up a dialog box saying that it can't.

Now, that being said, there are programs that will allow older applications to access the port directly by opening a Ring0 interface between the application and the IO port. I'll see if I can dig up a link for you.

-PMF

[RayB]

OK it's been a long time, but my understanding is that a Paralell port is NOT the same as the Serial port. So which port is your device supposed to use?

Nextm have you already looked in the BIOS? That's usually where you configure the ESP/EPP modes of the ports...

~Ray B.

[DYNAGOD]

if it were up to me we would never upgrade it. its run FLAWLESSLY for well over a decade.
But the powers that be need all the machines in the shop to use xp pro to utilize the latest Shoptech E2 release.
That being said, we also need to be able to do backups on the CNC library to the master server in the shops office.,

The Sim is green  /
description: Green, embossed with text:
Green Security Lock (Activator) Patented
CNC Engineering
and their address (they are long our of business)

Its not a sentinel to my knowledge but it may be licenced in such a manner as not to say.

ive gone into the bios (its a dell so) and there isnt much.
trying to change the type thru the device manager,but that yields nothing but enhanced.


.

[Hoagie_one]

alot of motherboards allow you to change teh parrallel port type via teh bios.

might wanna try that

[DYNAGOD]

found a couple programs that allow a process to have Ring0 access to the ports.
Direct I/O and PortTalk

0x378 -0x37B is LPT1 so all should have to do is point to the exe and give that resource priority.

im awaiting my pci parallel port card to arrive today from officemax.
seeing as how i cant configure the one on the mobo to be standard, i figure ill have a better chance of installing a new one with the options i desire.

[SirPoonga]

you will probably need to do two things.  You can change your parallel port from epp to spp in bios.  You might need a program that "unlocks" the parallel port for the dos program.  XP handles parallel ports different than dos, windows 9x. 

http://www.zeecube.com/ParPort2004.htm
http://www.control.com/1026183657/index_html

[DYNAGOD]

you will probably need to do two things.  You can change your parallel port from epp to spp in bios.  You might need a program that "unlocks" the parallel port for the dos program.  XP handles parallel ports different than dos, windows 9x. 

http://www.zeecube.com/ParPort2004.htm
http://www.control.com/1026183657/index_html

\
that must a direct decendent of one of the programs i listed above, even the rhetoric of the decription sounds like they were written by the same individual.
.