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  • Re: Making a Parallel Port Laplink cable

    From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to kirkspragg on Monday, August 11, 2025 08:51:49
    kirkspragg wrote to Mindsurfer <=-

    Despite the fact that laplink's name became associated with these
    cables, the software itself kinda sucks, is unreliable and drops connection all the time in my experience.

    I remember the days of infrared, trying to get Thinkpads to talk to USB
    1.1 IRDA ports. How far we've come...



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  • From Mortar M.@21:2/101 to kirkspragg on Monday, August 11, 2025 13:40:33
    Re: Making a Parallel Port Laplink cable
    By: kirkspragg to All on Sat Aug 09 2025 18:36:32

    I have recently moved house...

    Where'd you move it to? ;)
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  • From kirkspragg@21:2/150 to Bob Worm on Monday, August 11, 2025 20:30:15
    I am not an expert on such things but I think twisted pairs only really help for balanced signals, not unbalanced (ground reference) signals. I
    I'm pretty sure you are right there.

    could be wrong. In fact I'll drop my tame electrical engineer friend a note and see what he thinks.
    I'd appreciate it if you did check with someone who knows better than I do!

    I imagine he will think "What's that idiot doing now? Bodging again, no doubt".
    Yes very much so. But then data transfer (and even networking) between computers via parallel port was always a bit of a bodge. The original parallel port really wasn't designed with this in mind!

    ... If you can't laugh at yourself, I'll laugh at you.

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  • From kirkspragg@21:2/150 to phigan on Monday, August 11, 2025 20:32:19
    You could try just extending the cable, with just a regular 25pin serial cable from Amazon, and maybe a gender changer if needed?

    If its a serial cable it won't have all 25 pinns connected at both ends as serial doesn't use them all. So thats unlikely to work.

    A 25 pin pass through cable might work if it's also shielded, maybe those exist? I'll have to look.

    ... If brains were taxed, he'd get a rebate.

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  • From Bob Worm@21:1/205 to kirkspragg on Tuesday, August 12, 2025 17:48:04
    Re: Re: Making a Parallel Port Laplink cable
    By: kirkspragg to Bob Worm on Mon Aug 11 2025 20:30:15

    could be wrong. In fact I'll drop my tame electrical engineer friend a note and see what he thinks.
    I'd appreciate it if you did check with someone who knows better than I do!

    For what it's worth I asked my friend. He fired back a super long question about something he's trying to figure out and didn't answer - I will give him another kick shortly!

    By the time he answers you might already have tried it out, though :)

    BobW
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  • From kirkspragg@21:2/150 to Bob Worm on Tuesday, August 12, 2025 12:46:39
    For what it's worth I asked my friend. He fired back a super long
    question about something he's trying to figure out and didn't answer - I will give him another kick shortly!

    By the time he answers you might already have tried it out, though :)

    BobW

    Maybe! I have figured out that I probably don't need a 18 core cable for this, 12 should do if I wire it up following the linux kernel docs for plip (docs.kernel.org/networking/plip.html) & use the "Parallel transfer mode 0 cable" schematic. That is for older non-bidirectional parallel ports, which is what my retro PC has so that should work.

    So I could do it with 3 runs for 4 core shielded cabling I can get locally. Also less soldering involved! A win on two fonts!

    ... Is it ignorance or apathy? I don't know and don't care.

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