Parallel to Serial

Here's another stupid question from yours truely.....me!

I have an ancient laptop with Win 95, and my Vista desktop. I also have a
parallel to serial cable, male parallel at one end and a female serial at the
other end. I had read something about a Direct Cable Connection, but I didn't
see certain options that were needed to use it....even then, when I tried to
install that service on the laptop, it asked for the Windows install disk,
which is long gone...any ideas?

Is it a crossover cable? I think would be male to male (or vice versa) if
it were. You would need such a cable to directly connect any two computers.

"UnknownTBeast" <> wrote in message
news:2409E807-F87C-461A-8EDA-...
> Here's another stupid question from yours truely.....me!
>
> I have an ancient laptop with Win 95, and my Vista desktop. I also have a
> parallel to serial cable, male parallel at one end and a female serial at
> the
> other end. I had read something about a Direct Cable Connection, but I
> didn't
> see certain options that were needed to use it....even then, when I tried
> to
> install that service on the laptop, it asked for the Windows install disk,
> which is long gone...any ideas?

If you don't have access to a Win95 disk(s), you're SOL. You could put a
cheap NIC in the 95 machine, but again, if you don't have the disks... One
thing about 95, it will ask for the disks even if the files are already on
your hard drive, when it asks for a file, try pointing to Windows or
Windows\System, you might get lucky. At this point, an external USB drive
case, with your Win95 disk in it, seems to be a quick and easy solution.

"UnknownTBeast" <> wrote in message
news:2409E807-F87C-461A-8EDA-...
> Here's another stupid question from yours truely.....me!
>
> I have an ancient laptop with Win 95, and my Vista desktop. I also have a
> parallel to serial cable, male parallel at one end and a female serial at
> the
> other end. I had read something about a Direct Cable Connection, but I
> didn't
> see certain options that were needed to use it....even then, when I tried
> to
> install that service on the laptop, it asked for the Windows install disk,
> which is long gone...any ideas?

I don't think you can use a parallel to serial cable to to a direct cable
connection. They're two different methods of sending data.

Does vista even include drivers/support for serial and parallel port? I know
parallel port was being phased out in XP (as evident as my then old parallel
port scannel refused to work).
"UnknownTBeast" <> wrote in message
news:2409E807-F87C-461A-8EDA-...
> Here's another stupid question from yours truely.....me!
>
> I have an ancient laptop with Win 95, and my Vista desktop. I also have a
> parallel to serial cable, male parallel at one end and a female serial at
> the
> other end. I had read something about a Direct Cable Connection, but I
> didn't
> see certain options that were needed to use it....even then, when I tried
> to
> install that service on the laptop, it asked for the Windows install disk,
> which is long gone...any ideas?

"UnknownTBeast" <> wrote in message
news:2409E807-F87C-461A-8EDA-...
> Here's another stupid question from yours truely.....me!
>
> I have an ancient laptop with Win 95, and my Vista desktop. I also have a
> parallel to serial cable, male parallel at one end and a female serial at
> the
> other end. I had read something about a Direct Cable Connection, but I
> didn't
> see certain options that were needed to use it....even then, when I tried
> to
> install that service on the laptop, it asked for the Windows install disk,
> which is long gone...any ideas?

What you have is a 9 pin to 25 pin serial cable, most commonly used
to connect to external modems which use 25 pin connectors.

"Ian D" <> wrote in message
news:%...
>
> "UnknownTBeast" <> wrote in message
> news:2409E807-F87C-461A-8EDA-...
>> Here's another stupid question from yours truely.....me!
>>
>> I have an ancient laptop with Win 95, and my Vista desktop. I also have a
>> parallel to serial cable, male parallel at one end and a female serial at
>> the
>> other end. I had read something about a Direct Cable Connection, but I
>> didn't
>> see certain options that were needed to use it....even then, when I tried
>> to
>> install that service on the laptop, it asked for the Windows install
>> disk,
>> which is long gone...any ideas?
>
> What you have is a 9 pin to 25 pin serial cable, most commonly used
> to connect to external modems which use 25 pin connectors.
>

And is worthless for data translation. At that time there were cables with
circuits between them that did real conversion of signals...we used these
all the time. They require drivers.

That cable may just be a parallel cable for for a printer. Is one end a
'db25' male and the other a 'centronix' male. On my pc the parallel port
connector is a db25 female. Check the documentaion for your pc to see which
port is the serial and which is the parallel.

If you have a db25 male on your pc, most likely it is an rs-232 serial port
Most pcs nowadays has a db9 male for the serial port, if it has one at all.

McG.


"UnknownTBeast" <> wrote in message
news:2409E807-F87C-461A-8EDA-...
Here's another stupid question from yours truely.....me!

I have an ancient laptop with Win 95, and my Vista desktop. I also have a
parallel to serial cable, male parallel at one end and a female serial at
the
other end. I had read something about a Direct Cable Connection, but I
didn't
see certain options that were needed to use it....even then, when I tried to
install that service on the laptop, it asked for the Windows install disk,
which is long gone...any ideas?