TurboLink v2.11 on Windows XP

[toomanymodz]

My ancient laptop is giving up the ghost, so I just bought another used laptop today. It has a parallel port and Windows XP. It's an old Dell Latitude.

I've been trying for a couple of hours now and cannot get TurboLink to read the ECM data. Any ideas? Is there a particular LPT1 port configuration or setting?

 

[TurboDave]

If that laptop has a parallel port I seriously doubt that XP was it's original operating system.

I could be completely wrong on this, but didn't recognition of LPT1 die when XP came out???

 

[toomanymodz]

under device manager, it does say ECP LPT1, so who knows. The laptop has a sticker on in that does say windows 98/2000/NT. When I bought the computer it had nothing on it, so i partitioned the HD and installed XP. I do have NT server, so i could always try that operating system instead.

 

[toomanymodz]

Looks like I need to install Windows98 or DOS. I found this Q and A on a site called windowsbbs.com. I'll post it here for everyone:

QUESTION:
We purchased two new Compaq computers which came with Windows XP. We want to use these as equipment controllers for our test equipment, (Data Link Analyzer) which is connected to the parallel port.

Our test software runs OK in the DOS environment, but it fails to see the equipment connected to the parallel port and therefore only runs in Demo mode.

If I boot with and old dos ver 6.x, and run my test program works just fine. So XP is doing something to LPT1! Tried all the emulation options, and tried all the BIOS options...to no avail.

Thanks for your help.

ANSWER:
It may never work for you.

All NT systems (NT4/2K/XP) are written so no application is allowed to make direct calls to hardware to have the hardware do things. Instead, they run a HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer) which is basically a program within the operating system that traps all hardware calls, examines them, and if they are considered safe by the HAL, it will make the hardware call.

Sometimes a call is considered unsafe and the hardware never sees it. Sometimes the HAL mis-interprets the call and the wrong instructions are sent.

Especially in DOS and Win3.x days, there were serious limitations on what things the hardware could be made to do with normal instructions to the operating system so clever programmers wrote in tricks to allow their software to do what they wanted. 9X/ME allow a program to try whatever it wants so lots of the older stuff would do fine.

The bad news is, some older programs just can't be made to work. The good news is, your system is protected from some of the old programmer tricks that caused crashes.

 

[davelostmissing]

Ha anyone tried tried one of the I/O patch utilities? Used to work for parallel port programmers. EG:
http://www.direct-io.com/index.htm?http&&&www.direct-io.com/kb/q500001.htm
at your own risk

 

[toomanymodz]

I went ahead and re-partitioned and formatted the hard drive under FAT16 and installed DOS 5.0 TurboLink now works like a charm.

 

[aminga]

I thought turbolink hooked to the parallel port

 

[toomanymodz]

It does, and the software needs direct access to the port. Only DOS, Windows95, 98, and WindowsME will allow direct access. There is probably a way in WindowsXP using special I/O software but for me it was easier to just install DOS. The only thing I'll be using the laptop for is to run TurboLink to help tune the local turbo Buicks around my area.