hardware dongles and laptops

I need to find a laptop with a parallel port, or a viable solution
to a software dongle. I have tried a pcmcia to parallel card that did not work.

I may buy this one, but I’m not convinced that it will work.
http://sewelldirect.com/QuatechParallelPCMCIACard.asp

Any thoughts? I DO NOT want to spend the $948 for a USB version.
Thats right… Rofin wants $948 for a dongle.

Thanks.

don’t try a USB port extender … i did that for work and it didnt work either.

Most laptops you’ll be looking at will be quite a bit older in all likelihood. And it’s quite difficult to determine if it would work using a PCMCIA port extender.

you might be SOL

what is this for? A software license?

Its for a parallel port software key.

It works on a dock, so I thought there might be some hope.

hmmm, if it works on a dock, then I would keep looking. There has to be something that can do it for ya. Did you try calling the company that manufactures the device? they may be able to help you out

i’m going to buy the $99 one that mentions the sentinal software.
hopefully that will work.

ive got an old 200mhz laptop running win95 with a parallel port

$50

what about the parallel to USB cords or is that what you guys are talking about that dont work. cause i have one and it works fine for me

You can print with the USB to parallel cords without issue.

The issue is when you require anything more complex than printing.

I’m lookin got fix the problem, not prolong it.
I would rather buy a used thinkpad with the port than pay
Rofin $900 for each key.
On top of that, there are other applications that we require a parallel port for, and
it would be nice to not require our customers have one.

i didnt use it for a printer i used it for my fuel management on my old car

OT ‘dongle’ is one of the stupidest words ever.

May be a stupid suggestion, but could you use something like this?

not that anyone cares, but the quatech card worked.
:slight_smile:

It does not fit all our parallel needs, but at least we can use any laptop now.