One local printer needs two LPT ports on same machine

[Hank Allen]

I need to know if there is a way on a Windows 98 machine to have a printer
connected directly to the PC use both LPT1 and LPT2. We have one DOS app
that must use LPT1 and another LPT2. The network interface went bad on an
NEC printer we use and we can't afford the $300 to replace it until next
month. Thanks for any help.

Hank Allen

 

[PJx]

I need to know if there is a way on a Windows 98 machine to have a printer
connected directly to the PC use both LPT1 and LPT2. We have one DOS app
that must use LPT1 and another LPT2. The network interface went bad on an
NEC printer we use and we can't afford the $300 to replace it until next
month. Thanks for any help.

Hank Allen

A couple of things come to mind. The MODE command may work and if
not, there were a number of TSR (terminate and stay resident) programs
available that would manipulate the printer ports.

An old assembly programmer could uuse the DEBUG command and change a
couple of bytes in either of your programs to use the other LPT port.
PJ

 

[Markeau]

Maybe an automatic switchers that is typically used for 2 pc's to
connect to 1 printer?

 

[Jay]

consider connecting the printer on LPT1 and physically disabling LPT2.
Share the printer on LPT1 and map LPT2 (as a virtual port) persistently to
the shared printer. Then any application printing to LPT2 will print to the
printer physically connected to LPT1

 

[Larry]

A couple of things come to mind. The MODE command may work and if
not, there were a number of TSR (terminate and stay resident) programs
available that would manipulate the printer ports.

An old assembly programmer could uuse the DEBUG command and change a
couple of bytes in either of your programs to use the other LPT port.
PJ

A simple batchfile with the command prn > lpt# does the job for me.

Larry
Mystic