setting up parallel port as a serial port

[SaltyDuke]

Hello!

my machine needs two serial ports: one for a serial printer and one for network access. only problem is that the pc only has one serial port!

Hence, i'd like to set up the parallel port as another serial port. is this possible? if so, how do i go about it

P.S. before you try making suggestions please understand: the network card is dodgy so i use the minicom program configured with the serial port as the modem and i cannot get drivers to use the printer with a parallel port so i just use "cat file.name >/dev/ttyS0" to print files to serial port from the shell.

thanx for any advice!!
TheDaltyDuke

 

[RhythmAce]

In real life, ports are memory addresses. The connectors for serial and parallel are wired differently. Think of serial as a one lane hiway and parallel as an eight lane hiway. You can convert the connector from parallel to serial using a hardware device then change the address of the "port". Would converting to usb be out of the question?

 

[SaltyDuke]

RhythmAce

Thanx for the info. I reckon I'll get a convertor to use my parallel port as a serial port. (by the way, in Ireland our highways only have up to 3 lanes: and one of those is for busses only!! )

I've had some terrible difficulty using my USB ports in the past: I spent 2 weeks trying to get my machine to see my Alcatel SpeedTouch USB ADSL modem! I think that's a drivers/kernel issue which is kinda beyond my basic grasp of Linux, so I think I'll just keep it simple for now...

again, thanx for the help!
TheSaltyDuke