May be to pedestrian for you, but VirtualBox (according to this: <a href="http://news.softpedia.com/news/VirtualBox-4-2-Stable-Released-292004.shtml">http://news.softpedia.com/news/VirtualBox-4-2-Stable-Released-292004.shtml</a>) does parallel port passthrough.<div class="gmail_extra">
<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Dec 6, 2012 at 5:10 PM, Jim Kinney <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:jim.kinney@gmail.com" target="_blank">jim.kinney@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<p>Was looking at that but snag is a parallel port dongle. Kvm doesn't (qemu precisely ) not sure of others.<br>
Old DOS app (runs under freedos) requires blasted dongle. Freedos doesn't like it either.</p><div class="HOEnZb"><div class="h5">
<div class="gmail_quote">On Dec 6, 2012 4:46 PM, "JD" <<a href="mailto:jdp@algoloma.com" target="_blank">jdp@algoloma.com</a>> wrote:<br type="attribution"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
This is an ideal reason to deploy a virtual machine.<br>
Decouple the hardware from the OS.<br>
Move all the disk redundancy to the hostOS.<br>
<br>
As/If more compute power is needed in the future, moving the disk image to a<br>
faster host (still running a VM server), is all that it should take.<br>
<br>
Of course, the HostOS would be some sort of Linux, right? Probably a Xen or<br>
KVM-based deployment to avoid costly license fees.<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
... see how I brought it back On-Topic?<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
On 12/06/2012 03:53 PM, Jim Kinney wrote:<br>
> This is OT because the base system here is a zillion year old XP box (don't ask<br>
> - software won't run on new crap)<br>
><br>
> system became unresponsive to keyboard (USB) on the main connection on mobo but<br>
> worked on front panel connectors. Then those quit.<br>
><br>
> Clearly a hardware issue.<br>
><br>
> Noticed smell of overheated electronics from power supply so replaced it.<br>
> System had trouble booting but was OK going into safe mode.<br>
><br>
> 2 main drives in RAID 1 on a 3ware sata RAID card. System not happy about being<br>
> shutdown uncleanly (many crashes before I was called) and ran a full chckdsk /r<br>
> on boot drives which reported no errors.<br>
> System will auto-reboot on normal startup at splash screen and now complains<br>
> about new hardware (3ware controller!) in safe-mode. The RAID controller(s) were<br>
> not changed so maybe a bit of drive scramble in that sector. Time to reload<br>
> drivers. woo.<br>
><br>
> Original driver disk nowhere to be found so using latest download from LSI (2009<br>
> - about when the controller card went in) to add driver to OS drive(s).<br>
><br>
> Can't. Installer requires a VC++ something that requires the windows installer<br>
> to run. But safe mode won't run the windows installer.<br>
><br>
> reboot and cuss. Try floppy image - dug out usb floppy and found a single<br>
> working floppy disk (thought I had tossed all of those?). Install would run but<br>
> reboot asked for drivers again.<br>
><br>
> cuss more when safe-mode now automatically reboots on startup. No way to access<br>
> system drives anymore.<br>
><br>
> Replace motherboard, CPU, RAM, CD drive and power supply. Boots to safe mode<br>
> (YAY!) for new driver install. But original drivers for both RAID cards (other<br>
> is an adaptec with a mirror pair with application data) were now needing to be<br>
> installed. Plus now need to "re-authenticate" (cuss. spit.)<br>
><br>
> ???? How are the originally working 3 days ago drivers vanishing ????<br>
><br>
> unplug EVERYTHING, all drives, all raid cards, and try to boot from a known good<br>
> XP hard drive built on a different system<br>
><br>
> It does the same thing as the other drives! Gets to the XP splash screen then<br>
> reboots the systems.<br>
><br>
> F8 - set no restart on error - no change, set debug mode - just restarts with no<br>
> messages<br>
><br>
> Insert original installation CD to try for recovery console - blue screens after<br>
> _long_ fight to get driver disk (see floppy) to work.<br>
><br>
> Try newer XP-SP3 disk - blue screens<br>
><br>
> memtest says all RAM is just fine (single pass all tests).<br>
><br>
> W T F !!!!!?????!!!!!?????<br>
><br>
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