spectrum48k

So we have an old computer sitting in despatch that's been printing simple labels all it's life (since '96)

It runs MS-DOS 6.22 and talks to the 2x COM ports, IRQ1 and IRQ2

We need to move the application to a modern computer, and I'm just wondering if DOSbox would do the job ?

I've set up a newish computer and install parallel and com ports to it. Would I be right in thinking DOSbox would happily run the printing app and allow it to print to the com ports ?

Do I even need DOSbox ? In other words, would Win XP Pro manage it all in DOS compat mode ?

I'm just about to get the hard disk out and transfer the app over to the new computer.

boxst

Warning: I may be talking rubbish as it has been a long time!

The problem that I encountered was the way that Windows (especially Vista) mapped ports I found it very difficult to talk to the com ports in the way that I used to in DOS. In the end I gave up and wrote in again in VB.

Now onto someone who has done something like this recently ....

HHxx

I'm going to stick out my neck and say it should be fine under XP Pro. You might not even have to run it in compatibility mode. This is dependant on the app and hoping it obeys some rules and not hit the hardware direct...

We have a few DOS apps that are running fine on XP. The ones that use LPT & COM ports, we just mapped them to network printers and they are ok as well

Suck it and see.

boxst

See? Someone with more knowledge. I wrote the DOS application in assembler, so probably did some dodgy stuff all those years ago....

Steve

HHxx

Lol, I wouldn't say more knowledge

When it comes to legacy apps, if you didn't write it or know someone who did, it's all pot luck anyway...

Anyway, isn't it time to upgrade the app? You might even find a piece of freeware that does the same thing. Besides, what would you do if your serial printer broke down? Finding one that emulates it or one that prints exactly right is a pain in the ****.

Recently had fun trying to find a dumb driver for HP-UX to a printer that got all the layout right to a dot matrix... Why or why do people still want to use multipart carbon prints...

If this printer does labels with barcodes etc, we use DataMax's and Paxar's to do these.

spectrum48k

thanks all

you could be right - it's an ancient app in need of replacing, called" LEGI 80", and prints labels to dedicated label printers (Legitronic) via the 2 COM ports mapped as COM1 and COM2 with default IRQ and I/O. I noticed a parallel hardware dongle (I think it was anyway) so put a parallel port on the new machine also. According to our friend google, its by Weber
http://www.webermarking.com/software_faqs.html


Will have a play tomorrow and see how I get on

ChrisB

Good luck! I've had run-ins with applications (mainly PBX programming tools) that use the serial port and they've been right sods.

spectrum48k

story so far....

the hard drive was a pain to get the data off - tried booting winternals CD which would hopefully give me a shell that would offer BOTH access to the DOS drive AND a USB facility to dump the data to. No joy, not enough memory

Tried Hirens boot CD but none of the apps seemed to get on with the lack of memory

Took the hard drive out, plugged it into the new PC via my SATA/IDE > USB2.0 adapter. Drive recognised, but no allocation of a drive letter, and it didn't show up in Disk Management snap-in. It's an OLDE drive, 250MB (!)

Put the hard drive back into the old computer, put in a spare modern hard drive, booted the computer and did a...wait for it....FDISK on the new drive, then formatted it. Xcopy'd from one drive to the other, took the new drive out and HEY PRESTO, it was recognised by my SATA/IDE > USB adapter.

Now have to work out how to get the legacy DOS app to recognise the dongle in LPT1 ! Going to hunt through DOSbox docs and see if it can be done.