Question : USB to Parallel adapters

[weasel_ch]

I have WinUAE running nicely on an old DELL laptop and a custom built PC.

But I now do a lot of my work on a new DELL XPS M1330 Laptop - which does not have a parallel port.

Do the USB to Parallel adapters that are available now mean I can use one of those, along with PPJoy and my old custom built adapter cable to run my old Python joysticks with WinUAE on my M1330 laptop ?

Thanks,

Dave

[jaycee]

I doubt it. The PPJoy driver probably tries to use the parallel port hardware directly, and won't talk to the driver being used by the USB to Parallel converter.

Having said that, you should ask the author of PPJoy as it will depend how he is talking to the parallel port. If he is using Windows own parport.sys driver it MIGHT work fine with a USB converter, but it depends whether the USB converter makes itself a workalike of parport.sys.

I'd be quite surprised if someone hasnt made an oldschool joystick to USB adapter. It would be simple enough to do as a USB HID device with some small microcontroller.

[Sensi]

The same question I had in http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?...ick#post557976 and would like to know if it works (my a600 is rubbish ).

[jaycee]

I had a google but cannot find anywhere if someone has done a USB to 8-bit/9 pin joystick converter. I really don't understand why! One of the samples that Atmel have for their USB capable AVR's is a HID device. Such a thing could easily be turned into an adapter.

[LocalH]

Stelladaptor

Although I'm not sure if it supports the second fire button (doesn't seem to from the PDF linked on their website). There are also this homebrew project which claims to fully support not only two-button Atari-style sticks (like the Sega Master System) but also three- and six-button Genesis controllers, and this which does claim to support the two-button version of the Atari standard.

All of these are standard HID devices on the PC side, so no need for drivers or any special emulator support, simply plug-n-play.

[galu]

http://www.vilminko.net/henri/projvi...?id=19&lang=en (the easiest and cheapest way)

http://www.raphnet.net/electronique/...b/index_en.php (atmel)

[mark_k]

Originally Posted by weasel_ch

I have WinUAE running nicely on an old DELL laptop and a custom built PC.

But I now do a lot of my work on a new DELL XPS M1330 Laptop - which does not have a parallel port.

Do the USB to Parallel adapters that are available now mean I can use one of those, along with PPJoy and my old custom built adapter cable to run my old Python joysticks with WinUAE on my M1330 laptop ?

You could buy a hardware parallel port ExpressCard for your laptop. If the software you want to use allows you to specify the parallel port I/O address, it should work fine with one of those.

Some software is hard-coded to only work with parallel ports at the old "legacy" PC addresses. Programs like that won't work with an ExpressCard parallel port.

Be careful when choosing which card to buy though. Most cheaper ones are USB-to-parallel converters in ExpressCard format, not a true hardware PCI Express parallel port.