Moder mother boards and parallel port for POCKET LINKER

[KeiDash]

Hi everyone,

I'm an old Pocket Linker for Neo Geo Pocket user, to transfer data from/to flash cart. In case anyone doesn't know, it works with old mother boards with parallel port and Win98 O.S. The years has gone and it's unconfortable has an old computer only to do this process.

I tryed to use in my modern PC a PCIe parallel port board and connect it with a O.S emulator like VMWare or VirtualBox, but none of these software detects the Pocket Linker before instaling the drivers, etc.

I know that exists modern flash carts like FlashMasta but I don't want to stop using the Pocket Linker because it still works and works perfect (in Win98 xDD).

So my question is, someone know if in 2022 it's possible to connect this PocketLinker in a modern motherboards?

Many thanks

[Flavor]

I think that I used VMWare and WinXP to do this before.  Perhaps you may need a USB->Parallel adapter.  I don't know.  It has been a long time since I tried that.

Also, look for PokeLink source code at https://www.devrs.com/ngp/
"2000-07-24 - PokeLink v1.01j1 - Posted by: Jeff Frohwein"

Perhaps you could get that to build on Linux or something.

Oh, actually, look here: https://forum.freeplaytech.com/showthrea...7&pid=2153

And, I know that you replied there before.  I think the links work, but something blocks them.  Try to copy/paste the link into a new browser window/tab.  I think you can get the source code files.

Code:

http://ngpc.freeplaytech.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/PokeLink_src.zip
http://ngpc.freeplaytech.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/poklink_1-01j2.zip

[KeiDash]

Thanks for your reply Flavor,

PokeLink doesn't use de IO Driver? I read it somewher yesterday.

I'm going to try first in an old computer with LPT and try to read/write data with it. If this works, the next step will be use an LPT to USB adapter and prey it works hahahaha.

Thanks!

EDIT:
- I found this site that creates a true LPT to USB adapter (https://www-user.tu-chemnitz.de/~heha/ba...dex.en.htm) maybe this will be the solution, what do you think?

[Flavor]

If I recall (very many years since I played with the code), PokeLink used IO driver, but I think that the "Jeff Frohwein" "j2" version was for Linux and wouldn't use ANY of that Windows stuff.

Here's another resource that could maybe help get it working in a WinXP virtual machine.
https://assemblergames.org/viewtopic.php?t=5843

This would really, very much, depend on the USB parallel port device.  The one you mentioned looks nice, but I can't really tell. 

I've done enough low level coding on this stuff to know that it really isn't a parallel port issue.  The parallel port is just what they chose (back in the day) to allow the PC to interface with the cartridge's flash memory. 

What I mean by this is that looking over the PokeLink source code should give you an idea of how they are loading things.  You might be able to do something similar with an Arduino and some wires.  I tried to create something like this many years ago, but then we switched over to using our own "linker" device (and then put it all on the cart).

So, any USB->Parallel port device that allows you to use ALL the parallel port pins will be able to work, but it may require some custom code.

I dunno man.  It's been quite a long time since I've really dug into this.  I've spent a bunch of time trying to remind myself, but I haven't come up with any solid advice that you can act on.  I hope my fuzzy advice can help a little.