I picked up a National Instruments GPIB-1284CT parallel port GPIB interface at a swapmeet cheap.
NI quit supporting it on windows 98. I did get it running in win98 on an ancient laptop that's maxed out at 128MB of RAM.
I'd like to get it running on modern hardware.
Modern hardware lacks a parallel port and drivers for win98.
Virtualbox has hidden support for the parallel port, but it's unclear whether that mode supports whatever NI uses to access that port.
Second problem is the missing physical parallel port. I have a pile of usb/parallel adapters. Virtualbox should present virtual win98 with a parallel port, but it's not clear whether that supports the methods used by NI. I don't expect there's any way to get win98 to recognize the usb dongle directly in virtualbox??
Google seems to have reached a dead end on that subject. I haven't found much relevant on the NI site.
Another option is to bit-bang the parallel interface. I've successfully implemented enough of the api to get serial to GPIB working for my application using a PIC and a USB/serial adapter or Bluetooth/serial adapter.
The GPIB-1284CT has an ASIC between the parallel port and the GPIB chip. Haven't found documentation on how that interface works. Even if I know how to program the GPIB chip, I still don't know what to tell the ASIC to make that happen. That doesn't solve the issue of whether the usb/parallel adapter can do what is required.
Yes, somewhere in this pile-o-stuff I have a logic analyzer that can decode GPIB and parallel port. I'd rather not repeat what's already known.
Before I dive down that rat hole, has anybody made the GPIB-1284CT work with modern hardware and OS? How?