No LPT1: support? Is that nuts???

DaveLovesVBox · Post by **DaveLovesVBox** » 26. Nov 2008, 01:13

Hi people,

Well after a day and a half and a LOT of help from folks here I have DOS 6.22 and win3.1 running. I installed the printer driver for the large flat bed plotter I need to drive and damn me, suddenly discover VBox does not have access to the LPT: Printer port.

I am screwed!

I had looked at the docs but had not noticed there was no Parallel port mentioned near the Serial port section. Aaarrggghhhh.

OK, I am back to the 486 computer and win3.1 all traveling at about the speed of honey through a straw.

What a waste of 1-1/2 days.

I notice in the Suggestions section there are almost 13,000, yup, thirteen thousand views of the parallel port suggestion. Seems like I am not alone.

Dave

Post by **Martin** » 26. Nov 2008, 12:38

How many commercial customers will pay Sun for Vbox with parallel support? Also VBox doesn't really support DOS/real mode Windows, so that would be the next hurdle...
If so many people need parallel support then why aren't some open source developers integrating it already?

Martin

Post by **Sasquatch** » 26. Nov 2008, 12:42

Views does not say much. It's the responses that counts. You know that LPT is end of life and no longer used, right? New computers don't even have one. It's a nice and pretty much requested feature, but I have no idea if it actually will be implemented.

DaveLovesVBox · Post by **DaveLovesVBox** » 26. Nov 2008, 16:17

Sasquatch wrote:Views does not say much. It's the responses that counts. You know that LPT is end of life and no longer used, right? New computers don't even have one. It's a nice and pretty much requested feature, but I have no idea if it actually will be implemented.

Hi Sasquatch,

I largely disagree with the "views" comment. OK, let's assume only half were looking for LPT support and that is still a lot of people looking in a little over 15 months since that suggestion was posted.

I realize new computers do not have an LPT but one of the benefits of a Virtual Machines is for legacy projects. How many people do you suppose are running late model operating systems within VBox? I would guess there are many times more people running older OSs to utilize older software and hardware as I am trying to do.

Dave

DaveLovesVBox · Post by **DaveLovesVBox** » 26. Nov 2008, 16:27

Martin wrote:How many commercial customers will pay Sun for Vbox with parallel support? Also VBox doesn't really support DOS/real mode Windows, so that would be the next hurdle...
If so many people need parallel support then why aren't some open source developers integrating it already?

Martin

Martin, I thought this was free software? I sincerely doubt Sun look at features of their Open Source software to see where they could make a Corporate buck.

Also I beg to differ with the "support DOS" comment as it is an option in the type of Virtual Machine drop down list when creating a new VM. If DOS is not supported then what is it doing in that list of VM types?

Note also that win3.1 appears in that list and win3.1 is a front end for DOS, it is not an OS, so by implication DOS IS still supported with win3.1, just not fully.

As it turns out win3.1 does NOT run in a VBox anyway so the point is moot. See the 7-month old bug ticket 1502. Well, win3.1 will run in Safe mode but then it crashes VBox when I try to use graphics.

My entire need to run VBox is for an old flat bed plotter that only has drivers for win3.1 and is driven by the LPT: Currently I am using an old 486 to drive it but it is so slow. I was excited when I thought VBox would solve that issue. Alas, not even close.

Game, set and match here as I am screwed in both requirements. Fortunately I have found another Open Source process called DosBox and while not as slick or fast as VBox, it does run win3.1 and does support LPT: and is faster than the 486.

Dave