Epson TM-88III with Windows 10 and parallel to USB cable

[JimFromCanada]

My desired outcome is to connect an epson tm-88iii printer to a windows 10 VM that is hosting a lab environment of micros 3700 v5.7. The host machine (hosting the VM) is also windows 10.

I have a parallel to usb cable that appears to be made by 'sabrent'.

I have installed the epson advanced printer driver on the host machine but the printer appears as "not available" in windows. Any attempt to communicate with the printer via the epson utilities (logo utility, etc) all yield "failed to communicate" in some form or another.

Is what I'm attempting to accomplish even possible? On the surface it seemed like a no brainer but perhaps that was simply my naivety.

TL;DR:
Epson TM-88iii --> parallel to usb cable --> windows 10: fails to do connect via any epson application, and windows makes it seem like the printer is disconnected.

The ultimate goal is to share the parallel / serial / usb port for said printer into a VM that is hosted on the same machine, and the VM is running micros. I just need to test receipt printing (with actual printer commands, not just text, therefore the journal is out of the question) but this seems to be oddly difficult to accomplish.

The host machine also has no parallel or serial ports--only USB unfortunately.

The cable in question is a "Sabrent USB to Parallel IEEE 1284 Printer Cable Adapter (CB-CN36)"
Firmware Version 7.05 ESC/POS
APD Ver4.58
EPSON TM-T88III ReceiptE4 Version 5, 0, 11, 0
EPSON Status API Version 6, 02, 0, 0
Windows 10 20H2 / 19042.1165
EPSON COM Emulation USB Port version 6.1.7600.16385

There is also an entry in device manager under "Universal Serial Bus controllers" called "No Printer Attached" that has this message in the events tab:
---
Device USBPRINT\UnknownPrinter\7&2ba8f4c4&0&USB002 was not migrated due to partial or ambiguous match.

Last Device Instance Id: PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_15C1&SUBSYS_11112222&REV_01\6&15c62231&0&001000E4
Class Guid: {36fc9e60-c465-11cf-8056-444553540000}
Location Path:
Migration Rank: 0xF000FFFFFFFFF122
Present: false
Status: 0xC0000719
---

There is also an entry in the same node of the tree called "USB Printing Support" that shows up at Port_#0001.Hub_#0004 that may or may not be the Sabrent cable (it's plugged into a USB hub with 7 other things).

I tried plugging the printer into a different USB hub and was met with a similar error message:
---
Device USBPRINT\UnknownPrinter\a&14060db&0&USB002 was not migrated due to partial or ambiguous match.

Last Device Instance Id: USB\VID_045E&PID_00DB\6&a104c71&0&1
Class Guid: {36fc9e60-c465-11cf-8056-444553540000}
Location Path:
Migration Rank: 0xF000FFFFFFFFF122
Present: false
Status: 0xC0000719
---

I also made sure that "enable bi-directional support" was unchecked.

 

[CathalMF]

What VM software are you using?

Specialist in creating custom applications for the Micros POS range: 3700, 9700, Simphony FE, Simphony. SIM Scripts, Data Exports, Simphony extension applications, API Creation and integration. If you need anything please contact me via my website

http://www.microspostools.com/

 

[JimFromCanada]

Virtual Box for the VM.
I can't even get it to work on the host, however. :/

The first foray was with the VM, but all the above was taken from the host machine (Win10).

 

[JimFromCanada]

Update: I ran out of patience and ordered a replacement module for the serial / parallel comms.

The item in question is called an "EPSON USB INTERFACE M148E UB-U03II TM-T88II TM-T88III TM-U220 A187" (or rough equivalent) and it was just a matter of swapping the cards out of the printer. It was only two screws and nothing else had to be removed to accomplish this (quite surprising and quite refreshing to have something technical 'just work').

I had previously uninstalled the advanced printer driver (APD) in anticipation of the interface swap, so simply running the ADP installer again had the printer working immediately.

It may have been relying on settings I had left in the "EPSON TM Virtual Port Driver Port Assignment Tool", but those two steps (ADP + virtual port) were the only thing required to get the EPSON TM-T88III working under windows 10, and subsequently working in a VM (just share the printer via the devices->usb menu in virtual box).

TL;DR: centronix to USB may not work well in windows 10, but swapping out the serial card on the printer was simple and effective.