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You should make a null modem cable, but if you want it to work with most software you'll need 7 wires. Info here:

The last time I did something like that I used something called generically a "Laplink cable" after the makers of an old program. and the INTERLNK.EXE and INTERSVR.EXE programs that were part of DOS.

It works with two serial or two parallel ports, IIRC. I think I paid about $6 for the cable, which has two connectors on each end (a DB-9 and a DB-25 of one sex or the tuther).

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

Have you considerd moving the old hard drive into the new system temporarily? It is the easiest solution.

Melvin Stevens

To transfer my old PC's hard disc contents (1 Gbyte) to this PC's hard disc I made up a "laplink" type cable that connects to both the LPT's. Data is transferred a nibble at a time and is fast. The Laplink wiring is standard and a number of web sites carry it. Total transfer time was something like an hour. Windows 95/98 carries the programme as something like ... "Start/Programmes/Accessories/Communications/Direct cable connection". Run this prog' on both PC's and copy the directories from drive to drive as if both PCs were just one PC. regards john

"John Jardine" schreef in bericht news:bij7rm$bbg$ snipped-for-privacy@newsg4.svr.pol.co.uk...

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That pretty fast. I thought LPT traffic was limited to some 100K transfers per second, and being nibbles that would be some 50Kbyte per second or

But who cares, it certainly beats using floppies ;)

I don't know if laplink uses them but all modern centronic printer ports support SPP, EPP, and EPT modes of operation. EPT can tranfer megabytes per second, assuming the rest of the system can handle it.

Dana Frank Raymond

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There are other ways.. if it's got a modern O/S, drop a $10 network card into it.. or temporarily install a CD-RW drive.. or move the old HDD over to the new computer temporarily.

If it's a laptop, the options are more limited, but there are inexpensive USBethernet devices, and you can get inexpensive adapters to fit laptop 2.5" drives into desktop systems.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

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You're right!. Looking back I remember *not* transferring Doom and Wolfenstein. Must have saved me a couple of hours at least :-). regards john

------------------ Melvin- you are being too logical. It appears that the easy solution is one that most are avoiding. KISS works.

-- Don Kelly snipped-for-privacy@peeshaw.ca remove the urine to answer

You tie the DSR and DTR together (pins 8 and 20) on each end. Then you send the RTS on each end to the CTS of the opposite end. This is the standard null modem crossover cable. You can connect the shield on each end to both the shield pin 1 and sig ground pin 7, leaving all four insulated wires for signals.

BTW, we will see you here some time late next week, after you get thru transferring all the stuff. Serial isn't fast enough fore today's data 'aggregation'. You really need a Cat5 crossover cable for a pair of NICs.

If you have nics in each puter, then why not transfer files to the tune of millions of bytes per second as opposed to serial port's thousands. Just make or buy a crossover network cable.

You will _not_ need 7 wires! For a null modem, using software handshake, AKA XON/XOFF, all you need is three, Txd, Rxd, and sig gnd. Or 5 wires for hardware handshake.

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It's the fastest but not the easiest. Most users haven't even got the knowledge to plug the ribb BACKUPS ARE FOR SISSIES!

more like megabits per second. The slew rate of a parallel port is limited for some reason, might be for RFI or part 68 regulations.

Thanks! :-) That's a null modem, after all, which I found after a little research. The guy at the comp. place offered to sell me one for twenty bucks, but I'm a hacker. Connectors are about two bucks at RS, wire is free, and I already have a crimper.

At first, I was going to move the drive, but I'm kinda reluctant to start messing with a brand spanking new system, and I've realized, hey, I've got two fully operational computers here! The new one has Win 2000, and the old one has Win 95 and Slackware Linux (one at a time, of course.) I also have a Motorola ICS05 in-circuit simulator, and at one point had the serial port going at 115000 bps or something mind-boggling.

In any case, connecting them together will be fun; I plan to try both windows networking file sharing, and set up the HTTP server (Apache) on the old box, and explore it with the new box via IE and DCC. (anybody ever heard of a wireless DSL link? Not a wireless LAN with a DSL box and wire, but a box that sends the DSL by RF, a la cell phone? Thanks!)

Thanks, Everybody!

Incidentally, I figured out why people are so prone to pop into the NG to ask a question when it's pretty clear that they haven't done much, if any, research - one, newbies don't know how, but more subtle, and possibly more important, is that after sitting at the computer all day, with our reference books and soldering iron and crap, staring at the same four walls, day in and day out, the NGs are the closest thing to human contact some of us make outside of the office! %-]

Cheers! Rich

Absolutely! We need to have a reunion !-)

...Jim Thompson

I bet you gave him "The business!" after that. ;-)