Supervisor: Ian Harries <ih@doc.ic.ac.uk>

Objective
To provide a facility for file transfer between two PCs connected via their parallel printer ports.

Description
Although the IBM-PC parallel printer port is intended for output only, there are enough input lines available for 4-bit I/O, with handshaking, so data bytes can be transferred half at a time. (Most new PCs have a bi-directional parallel printer port, but this is not a standard feature).

Requirements
This should be implemented as a "master-slave" system with everything being controlled by the local "master" PC. The remote "slave" PC just sits there and does what it is told.

Previous solutions have run under MS-DOS. I think it's about time I had a comprehensive MS-Windows version, probably with a minimal MS-DOS slave-only version as well for instances where one of the PCs to be connected is unable to run MS-Windows.

A simple command set must be provided, including

• Change current directory (local & remote)
• Get directory listing (local & remote)
• Fetch remote file
• Send local file

Care would need to be taken that existing files are not overwritten unintentionally and that there is enough disk space available for a requested transfer.

Possible enhancements include:

• Additional file and directory handling (creation/deletion etc).
• Multiple fetch/send with wildcard expansion
• Data compression
• Data integrity check

Details
With the information provided it is possible to design and build a cable to connect two IBM-PC-compatible computers via their parallel printer ports and to write software to enable exchange of data between them.

Reference
PC parallel printer port

ISE1 Group Project Summary - June 95

BEng/MEng Group Project Summary - December 95

MSc (Conversion) Group Project Summary - March 96