PC to PC with serial/parallel port?

Homer

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May 11, 2005, 3:01:43 PM5/11/05

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Hi,
I have an old laptop running Win98. It has no CD drive, floppy is broken, no
USB port, only serial and parallel ports.
Is there any way I can transfer files from my main PC (Win XP) on to this
old laptop using the serial or parallel ports?

TIA

recursor

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May 11, 2005, 3:14:32 PM5/11/05

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"Homer" <feckin...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:42825635$0$579$ed26...@ptn-nntp-reader03.plus.net...

http://www.cabling4less.co.uk/Data_Cables.php Now there's a rave from the grave
question. A null modem serial cable is what you need. Plug it in and the WinXP
box may be able to see the other computer with no more intervention on your
part, Ain't guaranteed though but sufficient fucking about should get you there
in the end.

Jon

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May 11, 2005, 5:21:38 PM5/11/05

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feckin...@hotmail.com declared for all the world to hear...

Yes, but it will be frightfully slow. Parallell is a bit faster than
serial, and you will need a file transfer cable (not a standard
serial/parallel cable) and then use the appropriate accessory (win98
it's called Direct Cbale Connection Start > Accessories > Communications
from memory, and on XP use the create new connection wizard in network
connections, then choose advanced connection.)
--
Regards
Jon

Lee

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May 11, 2005, 6:33:20 PM5/11/05

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A 4-bit parallel file transfer cable, which is fairly easy to DIY, might
get you around 80kbyte/s, this may be ok if you don't have much data to
transfer...

A faster solution, if you have easy access to the drive, is a 2.5" to
3.5" adapter and just stick the laptop's drive in the main pc ;)

Lee
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Email address is valid, but is unlikely to be read.

Martin Slaney

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May 12, 2005, 5:53:41 AM5/12/05

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Jon wrote:

I have an old DOS program called fx. Ideal way to use it for this
situation is to have both null-modem cable and crossover parallel cable.

The fx program can copy itself to a remote filesystem via serial port,
but not by parallel port. So use the null-modem cable to install the fx
program, then switch over to the (much faster) parallel cable. Works well.

--
..

I am not a marketing target ... I am a free man.

Johnny B Good

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May 12, 2005, 9:11:54 AM5/12/05

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The message <ivOdnWsI9a8...@pipex.net>
from Martin Slaney <sl...@dsl.NIET_SPAMpipex.com> contains these words:

> Jon wrote:

Sound advice, but this requires you to have a version of dos (realmode)
already installed on the laptop (ie msdos 3.1 up to the version7 used by
win95osr2, win98 and win98se but not winME[1]).

[1] Although winME is simply a tarted up win98se with the same
underlying dos, it's broken by the fact that ms removed the boot to a
dos realmode session option at startup and removed the restart in dos
option from the shutdown menu to disguise this fact. On a system with a
_working_ floppy disk (or a usb boot option in the bios), you can make a
startup boot floppy (which can be used as boot image for a usb device)
which can then be used to overcome this shortcoming. In this case, the
OP doesn't have such a luxury[2].

[2] Actually, FX (or FastLynX at any rate) will work from a dos session
within win9x (AFAIR) but I've never tested whether the mode command used
to switch the console input to a serial device will still work the
required magic to allow FX to be downloaded from the other machine. It
might be possible to use the serial link to get a copy of FX downloaded
from another PC even in this situation but I've never actually had to
test this.

--
Regards, John.

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Johannes

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May 12, 2005, 4:25:20 PM5/12/05

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Does it have a PCMCIA slot? Many laptops of this age have this.