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Recalcitrant dongle on PADS 3.5

J

Joerg

Jan 1, 1970
0
Hello,

My layouter uses PADS PCB 3.5. Yeah, it's old and long since out of
support but works perfectly, so no need to switch. Unfortunately it
needs a dongle of the parallel port kind. He had to replace his computer
and bought one with a real parallel port but the dongle won't work
anymore. He says the dongle is too slow internally and that this is
known as the "pink or green dongle problem". It was discuss in a forum a
long time ago but that forum is no longer existing.

He said some environment variable(s) in Windows have to be changed but
doesn't remember which ones and to what. Does anyone here remember?
 
R

Rich Webb

Jan 1, 1970
0
Hello,

My layouter uses PADS PCB 3.5. Yeah, it's old and long since out of
support but works perfectly, so no need to switch. Unfortunately it
needs a dongle of the parallel port kind. He had to replace his computer
and bought one with a real parallel port but the dongle won't work
anymore. He says the dongle is too slow internally and that this is
known as the "pink or green dongle problem". It was discuss in a forum a
long time ago but that forum is no longer existing.

He said some environment variable(s) in Windows have to be changed but
doesn't remember which ones and to what. Does anyone here remember?

Which Windows? (Guessing XP) Does the parallel port device support SPP/
EPP/ECP? Try changing types and/or enable/disable interrupt capability.
 
J

Joerg

Jan 1, 1970
0
Rich said:
Which Windows? (Guessing XP) Does the parallel port device support SPP/
EPP/ECP? Try changing types and/or enable/disable interrupt capability.

As far as I know XP. But no clue what the dongle supports, it's rather
old so probably can only do what was around in the 90's. Essentially we
have to slow down the operation of the parallel port which could
(possibly) make this dongle work again.
 
J

Joerg

Jan 1, 1970
0
Tim said:
If you don't find joy here, check Wikipedia on the flavors (SPP, etc.).
Pick the oldest, and see how it goes.

He's tried the usual tricks, no luck.

I hate dongles. I understand why folks want them. But I hate them.

During the first half of my life I have consistently refused dongled
software. Basically told the sales guys to go fly a kite. I plan to
stick to that philosophy for the 2nd half of my life as well :)
 
M

Martin Riddle

Jan 1, 1970
0
Joerg said:
He's tried the usual tricks, no luck.



During the first half of my life I have consistently refused dongled
software. Basically told the sales guys to go fly a kite. I plan to
stick to that philosophy for the 2nd half of my life as well :)

--


Try to set the BIOS LPT port setting to ECP, that's the bidirectional
one IBM style.

Cheers
 
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