Ed, K4SB made some suggestions that led to the solution of my
unavailable parallel port problem. Ed thought the BIOS might be the
key--and it is.
I had noted that in the Device Manager listing under Ports, my old
computer just said "Printer Port (LPT1)" and displayed only 378-37F for
I/O resources. But /this/ computer listed it as "ECP Printer Port" with
a second line of I/O resources (778-77F)and showed LPT3 as "PCI SPP/BPP
Printer Port". I had ignored this before, so I Googled the
acronyms---ECP is Extended Capabilities Port, SPP is Standard Printer
Port and BPP is Bidirectional Printer Port.
SPP is your basic one-way 8-bit printer control, while BPP makes it
bidirectional. The other protocols add functionality to non-printer
hardware setups, but apparently the interfaces and handshakes are
different---and that is the cause of the problem.
When I opened BIOS, I found that Normal (SPP), EPP, ECP and ECP+EPP were
all options, EPP means "Enhanced Parallel Port", and ECP+EPP had been
selected. ECP is the villain here: neither ECP nor ECP+EPP allows access
in WL to the LPT1 port. Normal (SPP) ungrays the parallel ports in
Setup---but the CW stutters and is unusable. EPP allows full access and
smooth CW. Problem solved.
I did not expect to obtain an education in parallel ports to restore
keying functionality in WL, but there it is. More info is at
http://www.bb-elec.com/tech_articles/parallel_port_explained.asp
Thanks to K4SB, K6LL and others who offered help.
Garry, NI6T
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