PCS500A connection with USB to parallel printer port adaptor

Instruments PC Oscilloscopes and Recorders
1

I’ve had a PCS500A for many years on my old (2006) Win XP PC and have been well pleased with it (the PCS500A, that is).
Now I really need to buy a new PC and this will not have a parallel printer port in it, nor will it have the option of a parallel printer PCI card.

  1. Is it possible to use the PCS500A with a bidirectional USB to Parallel Printer Port (USB<->LPT) adaptor cable?
  2. If it is possible, are there any particular USB<->LPT cables that have been tested by PCS500A users and are known to work?
  3. If it is possible, will the latest PCLab2000 software work with such an arrangement?
  4. What issues might be expected with this?
  5. Is it possible to get the PCS500A work with a USB<->LPT adaptor cable on a computer running Windows as a virtual machine, using, eg Parallels or VMWare? What issues might be expected?
    Thanks
    John
2

The PCS500 is a great scope.
The problem is it’s a very old scope.
It will not work with a USB to LPT port converter.
You might try getting a older PC that has a LPT port (should be cheap) and dedicate it to the scope.

3

Hi
Yep, I learned that the usb adaptor won’t work by borrowing one and trying it out.
By digging around on the web I learned that the issue is that the PCLab2000 software uses direct hardware addressing for the LPTn ports. You can see this onh the PCLab2000 opening page. This means that there’s nothing inbetween the PCLab software and the physical hardware address of the LPT port that can be used to effect a mapping.
I already have an old PC and it’s my intention to replace it with a MacMini, so it looks like I’ll have to keep the old PC for a while longer.
Even the latest USB-based Velleman DSOs do not support Mac OSX, which is a pity, but I might have some success using a VM on the Mac.
Another option was to look at getting one of the BitScope DSO devices - which are supported on OSX - but my confidence in these devices is not great. They claim a 100MHz bandwidth with a 40Ms/s sampling rate,which according to Nyquist is not possible without aliasing. Even my trusty 50Ms/s PCS500A is busting its chops to accurately display a few cycles of 27MHz sine accurately.
Fortunately I still have my Tek 2465B for any really hf work.
Thanks for the confirmation.
John