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Are USB ports able to be used for plotters? I am clearly not up to speed on differences between COM ports, serial, & parallel ports so help me out here. I was told that USB adapters may help me get all my devices (dongle, printer, scanner, plotter, EDGE, etc.)to fit into a new machine without adding ports.
My current task will not modify my edge set-up. That is on a dedicated AMD 1gig production computer with all the proper ECP, & EPP ports that were specified & set-up by my sales rep. I may however want to switch CasMate & my 24" plotter to that machine which will be another port issue for me.
The immediate task at hand is upgrading my design workstation. My design station is an Athalon 266 MHZ dinosaur. It's 256 megs of RAM limps along trying to multi-task my way through the day with Illustrator, Photoshop, Quickbooks & CasMate open simultanously. I am actually surprised this has worked as well as it has for so long.
I bought a Sony Vaio system with a 2 gig Pentium processor, 512 megs of RAM, & a 60 gig HD. I partitioned the drive to keep the pre-installed Windows XP on there, but to run 98 on another partition for CasMate. Since I am used to switching between 3 design programs to use the best tool for each job, then import files from here to there, I will boot up in 98 & mostly work there.
Anyway, the available ports are limited & I've always been advised to not run any cable into the back of the CasMate dongle. MY HP 750xi (printer, scanner, copier)uses one parallel port & I currently run my 24" Graphtec friction feed plotter on a serial port. The Sony machine has several USB ports as well as a couple i.LINK ports which is there name for an IEEE 1394 interface (I guess this is for camcorders, but mentioned it in case it may be of use to me)
I will either burn my 5 years of ZIP archives onto CD, or I will have to get an external USB ZIP since there is not one in the Sony.
Also of interest, while I may have the attention of any technical wizards out there, even though CasMate will not run in XP, has anyone run it in W98 compatibility mode within an XP environment? This would be preferrable to me over the 98 partition, so I could run my Adobe software in XP without re-booting.
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Doug a check into the documentation of the motherboard may reveal that there is a connector for an additional lpt port on it,if you are lucky. They usually only install one but leave the connector free if expansion is needed. If not an io parallel card is very inexpensive,usually under $25.00. Either alternative will give you an extra lpt port thus solving your problem.It may mean enableing or disableing some settings in your bios but either would be the most practical approach to answering your request.
-------------------- fly low...timi/NC is, Tim Barrow Barrow Art Signs Winston-Salem,NC Posts: 2224 | From: Winston-Salem,NC,USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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Doug, they sell USB-to-serial adapters as well as USE-to-parallel adapters. I know alot of manufacturers such as Belkin make them. I use one that allows me to print to my parallel printer via the usb port, yet the printer doesn't have a usb port. They usually come with a driver disk and once installed, the port shows up in windows just like any other port. You would have a new port listed such as lpt2 or com4. I've never had a problem with mine.
-------------------- Bruce Evans Crown Graphics Chino, CA graphics@westcoach.net Posts: 912 | From: Chino, CA | Registered: Nov 1998
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Timi, I'll check that out, sounds like 2 good choices for adding a port.
Bruce, that is good news on your success with USB adapters on your printer. That will free up one parallel port already. I wonder if a security dongle would work that way as well.
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