As far as I know this feature will not be present in 0.64 release, but I could be wrong. I think it's just one of those "low priority" features. 😵

nope no intention to add something like that.

It's a shame, I really wanted to get that Plustek OpticPro 4831P back on service, it's a great scanner that won't work properly on XP. 😢

hi,

I'm an IT administrator at a company that uses DOS based software to run machinary. We have desperatly been trying to fnid a way to update the PCs while still allowing the software to work.

This is where DOSbox comes in. Unfortunatly, the software requires a 'dongal' to be plugged into the parallel port on the computer its used from, and because DOSbox doesn't have parallal support, it can't see this, so we are stuck.

The reason I posted this is because there are MANY companies that use back-dated software to run factory machinary, simply because the machinary has never been changed and the software never updates.

There would a large market for using DOsbox for other than games, and I'm hoping that parrallel support would be here soon!

well companies have money
so they can afford something like MS virtual pc which probably supports that as it's aimed on the company market.

You know, people here do this for fun - games are the explicit target. DOSBox is not supposed to be a generic PC/DOS emulator, but a game emulator.

Now, if there's something your company needs, and it's of some value (I know that running legacy apps can be of very high value), you could offer some money for inclined individuals to create a dongle-capable variant of dosbox, or you can write that yourself.

We're talking open-source here, no one can deny you doing that. There are a few rules to obey, most notably the rule that you have to publish your modifications as well if you publish the modfied dosbox exe, but apart from that it's nothing problematic or surprising.

I hope you can see the difference - when we contributors create addons for dosbox, or the authors improve compatibility, we do it for our personal gain (fun): being able to play old games. Doing things that don't help playing games means no gain, so you need some kind of incentive, or do it yourself - all of this is possible and allowed with open source.

I didn't mean to cause offense. I was just saying as there is a market for it, you could make a commercial version and actually get some money for your efforts.

Sorry, to have offended you.

Well, I do not think anybody was offended...
As to the parallel port: anybody can submit patch - it may or may not be included into an officiall version (but if not, you can make your own builds). There are also some able programmers here (check patches forum/section) and I guess you could arrange with somebody doing that...
As a matter of fact I think that sooner or later somebody will do it anyway....

The commerciall version of DOSBOX is not really possible - it is based on open source and it is impossible to go from open source to close source (it would break license conditions). Companies making money from OpenSource are basically charging for support (not for the software itself).

There is a possibility to voluntarily donate to DOSBOX on sourceforge.

Mirek

Indeed, my post didn't mean someone was offended. I just wanted to show how you can get "company-like" features in a more "company-like" manner. By the way, making money off open source works quite nicely, if done right. Transgaming shows this with their Cedega (previously called WineX) product. I myself have eaten more than one slice of bread paid through open source jobs.

Hi was reading your chat about dongles and lpt1 ports. If you want to pay for it there are legal ways to have a patch written for you to bypass the whole dongle thing. Larry

Just to provide some motivation for integrating a parallel port emulation:
Sim City 1 had this unique feature of printing *huge* city maps.

Wouldn't this be enough motivation for implementing the parallel port?!

At least my old Epson printer would think so... 😉

Oops, sorry. Forgot to log in before posting "Sim City 1" above.

Just had to say that I am *not* the business guy asking for the LPT1.

hrhr 😉 Well, if you're out to print things, look at sourceforge - there's a patch that emulates a dot matrix printer (it creates PNG images which you can then print on your native printer)

For proper direct parallel emulation in Windows NT series a device driver would be required...