# I need a second parallel port...



## michaelrmgreen (May 4, 2009)

...what hardware should I get. I've reviewed this: http://www.freebsd.org/releases/7.2R/hardware.html
but it's not very specific about so-called standard parallel ports.

Specific advice please - what to get and, especially, what to AVOID! Thanks in advance.


----------



## MG (May 4, 2009)

As far as I know a printer port is a legacy device. No driver is needed.
You need an ISA card with a secondary LPT port which should be on port adress 278. I think it doesn't matter what branch it is. As long as it is legacy IBM-pc hardware.


----------



## michaelrmgreen (May 5, 2009)

An ISA card won't work, it needs to be PCI. Ebay, and so on, lists a number of different PCI cards but they all seem to come with a driver CD, which will be Windows only of course. 

Gah, perhaps I'll set up a Windows system to use as a 'driver'. I hate it when 'legacy' technologies leave me in limbo with perfectly good, but old, hardware.


----------



## Carpetsmoker (May 5, 2009)

I have a PCI controller at work, IIRC it is a Sunex, comes for about 29 euro.
If you want I can try it with FreeBSD ...


----------



## michaelrmgreen (May 5, 2009)

Thanks for your kind offer. I don't want you to go to any trouble, but IF its no trouble then it would be interesting to know how it goes.


----------



## Carpetsmoker (May 8, 2009)

I tried the card with FreeBSD 7.2 LiveFS, it doesn't seem to work :-(

It's a Sunix card, it doesn't have a model number on the box, but on the PCB there is `4018T', which seems to be a model number.
The Chip is also from Sunix.

dmesg gives me `pci0: <simple comms> (No driver attached)'

Info from pciconf:
card: 0x4f4a8086
chip: 0x29b68086

We also have a PCI-E 1x card from a different brand (Forgot which...) ... Didn't try it, is this an option maybe?


----------



## monkeyboy (May 9, 2009)

if the printer port is needed to drive a printer, you might consider an Ethernet/printer (print server) box instead... cheap, more flexible, less CPU load and you won't have these driver issues...


----------



## michaelrmgreen (May 12, 2009)

Well, for now I've gone with the 'Windows as driver' solution. Thanks all.


----------

