dck@cbnewsh.att.com (david.c.kwong) (01/13/91)
There was a recent discussion re Unbuffered Printing from DOS to the parallel port. Has anybody solved the problem with DOS applications that talk to the parallel port to satisfy their copy protection scheme (they have a connector that you plug into the port)? I think the application must read from the port, so any process in-between must both read and write from /dev/lp. Is this correct? Thanks in advance. Sorry if this was discussed already; I just started reading this news group. D. C. Kwong att!mink!dck PS. I am running Simultask 2.0, which I understand is the same as VPIX. Does anybody know about this DDA feature, which is supposed to allow a DOS appl to talk directly to the physical HW?
john@jwt.UUCP (John Temples) (01/17/91)
In article <1991Jan13.054159.5184@cbnewsh.att.com> dck@cbnewsh.att.com (david.c.kwong) writes: >Has anybody solved the problem with DOS applications that >talk to the parallel port to satisfy their copy protection >scheme (they have a connector that you plug into the port)? > Does anybody know about this DDA > feature, which is supposed to allow a DOS appl > to talk directly to the physical HW? They're related. I've gotten printer port copy protection devices ("dongles") to work under VP/ix using the DDA feature. It's been a while since I've done this, but here are the steps as I remember them. I didn't have a printer attached to this port, only the dongle; so I'm not sure what needs to be done differently if you have a printer attached (if it can be made to work at all). Since you're DDAing the printer port, I doubt UNIX will be able to access it while you're in VP/ix. 1. Edit /usr/vpix/etc/vpixdevs and comment out PLEL1 if you're using LPT1 or PLEL2 if you're using LPT2. 2. Run 'sysadm ddainstall'. This will take you through the DDA installation. Use the same I/O range as is specified in the PLEL line you commented out. Don't specify an IRQ. 3. Add a line to your ~/vpix/vpix.cnf file containing the name of the device you added in step 2. Make sure the corresponding LPT device is commented out of vpix.cnf. When you start VP/ix, your application should now be able to see the dongle. -- John W. Temples -- john@jwt.UUCP (uunet!jwt!john)