How to Control a Floppy Drive With a Parallel Printer Port

You can connect hardware to your parallel port.

Most older computers have one, single parallel printer port. This allows you to connect a printer directly to the computer. However, some floppy disk drives that connect to a parallel port actually have two different connection ports. This allows you to connect the printer to your floppy disk drive while the drive is hooked up to the computer and still use the printer without rearranging the cable connections.

Things You'll Need

• External floppy disk drive
• Printer
• 2 Parallel printer cables
• Driver installation CD

Instructions

1. Connect a parallel cable into the parallel port on the computer. Make sure to hand-tighten the screws on the sides of the cables to ensure a secure connection.

2. Plug the opposite end of the cable into the "Out" port on the back of the external floppy disk drive.

3. Connect the second parallel port cable into the "In" port on the floppy disk drive, then plug the opposite end of the cable into the "Out" port on the parallel printer.

4. Power on the floppy disk drive and printer.

5. Insert the driver installation CD for the floppy disk drive. Click "Start," "My Computer" and double-click the CD drive icon. This loads the installation wizard. Follow the prompts to finish installing the floppy disk drive's drivers. The computer will detect the drive, and an icon for the floppy disk drive will appear in the computer's "My Computer" window.

6. Insert a floppy disk into the disk drive. You can access the information in "My Computer" by double-click the removable disk drive icon. This opens a window with all the files currently stored on the disk. From here you can click-and-drag files out of the window when you want to copy the contents, or you can click on a file and press "Delete" to delete the files.

References

• EPanorama: Parallel Port Output

Resources

• Read this Article in Spanish