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- February 19, 1997
-
- Many machines, especially Pentium's, come with manufacturer's
- CMOS (BIOS) default setup to non-EPP mode for parallel port.
- It is a good idea to change into EPP mode, since it does
- provide better performance and signal quality. Also see
- "Parallel Port Mode" Section below.
- _______________________________________________________________
-
- *** Driver Installation on Windows NT 4.0 ***
-
- 1. Click "My Computer".
- 2. Click "Control Panel".
- 3. Click "SCSI Adapters".
- 4. Select "Drivers".
- 5. Click "Add...".
- 6. Click "Have Disk...".
- 7. Insert Installation Diskette.
- 8. Click "OK".
- 9. Follow instruction to complete installation.
- 10. Remove diskette and restart system.
-
-
- *** Driver Installation on Windows NT 3.51 ***
-
- 1. Open "Main" window.
- 2. Click "Windows NT Setup".
- 3. Select "Options".
- 4. Select "Add/Remove SCSI Adapters...".
- 5. Click "Add...".
- 6. Click "OK" on Setup Message.
- 7. Click <Down Arrow>, go down the list to the end, and select
- "Other (Requires a disk from a hardware manufacturer)".
- 8. Insert Installation Diskette.
- 9. Click "OK".
- 10. Follow instruction to complete installation.
- 11. Remove diskette and restart system.
-
-
- *** Installing Windows NT 3.51/4.0 on a PC using TransCD ***
-
- 1. Make sure you have the appropriate version of the Windows
- NT CD and the set of NT Setup Startup Diskettes. You can
- create the Startup Diskettes from the CD using WINNT.EXE
- or WINNT32.EXE with /ox option. For more information, see
- SETUP.TXT file on the CD or ask your system administrator.
- 2. Make sure the TransCD is set up and connected properly and
- the NT CD is inserted.
- 3. Boot up the system from the Startup Diskettes and follow
- the instruction.
- 4. At some point, you will be prompted whether to specify
- additional SCSI adapters, CD-ROM drivers, etc., press 'S'
- to indicate so.
- 5. Select "Other (Requires disk provided by a hardware
- manufacturer)" and press ENTER.
- 6. Insert F.I.T. Installation Diskette and press ENTER.
- 7. Select "F.I.T. ... NT Driver" and press ENTER.
- 8. After F.I.T. Driver is recognized, press ENTER to continue
- setup.
- 9. Again follow the instruction to complete NT installation
- on the PC.
-
-
- *** Feature Highlight ***
-
- 1. Support one or multiple F.I.T. device(s) at the same time.
-
- 2. Multiple F.I.T. devices can be either daisy-chained on one
- parallel port or on separate parallel ports.
-
- 3. Support common standard parallel port types: EPP, ECP/EPP,
- ECP, Bi-directional, SPP (Normal), etc..
-
-
- *** Restriction ***
-
- 1. Printer pass-through capability of the F.I.T. devices is
- not supported due to a limitation in sharing parallel port
- under current Windows NT (3.51, 4.0) architecture. The
- printer, however, can still be connected to a separate
- unused parallel port if the PC is so equipped. This
- restriction may be lifted in the furure Microsoft NT OS
- releases when parallel port sharing is re-designed.
-
- 2. According to Microsoft, for NT 4.0, there is a bug in
- ParVdm.sys (used to support dongle) which can cause
- conflict with F.I.T. drivers. This may happen only on a
- PC equipped with more than one parallel port and not all
- ports are used by the F.I.T. devices. It is recommended
- that you disable ParVdm ("My Computer" -> "Control Panel"
- -> "Devices") and not allow a dongle to be used on a
- machine that is using F.I.T. devices. This restriction
- would be lifted once the bug fix is released by Microsoft.
- This problem does not apply to NT 3.51 since ParVdm is
- new for NT 4.0.
-
- 3. There is a limitation in Microsoft NT File System which
- does not allow a removable block device with NTFS format.
- If a PD cartridge with NTFS format is inserted into a
- TransCD/PD device, the NT File System will lock the
- cartridge preventing it from being removed. A block
- device with FAT format does not have this limitation.
-
- 4. To maintain media-compatibility across different
- Microsoft OS platforms (i.e., NT, Win95, DOS), it is
- recommended that only ONE primary partition with FAT
- format be maintained on any Trans-Series block device.
- Additional partitions or other partition types in one
- OS platform may not be supported in another OS platform.
-
- _______________________________________________________________
-
- *** Parallel Port Mode ***
- *** Useful For Troubleshooting
-
- The IBM PC compatible parallel (printer) port was originally
- designed for IBM PC/XT. The signal quality and speed of the
- parallel port was not an issue because the parallel port was
- able to keep up with the relatively slow CPU when transferring
- data between the CPU and the devices connected to the port.
-
- Since then, the performance of the CPU has been dramatically
- improved with the introduction of the 486's and Pentium's,
- while the parallel port itself stays pretty much the same.
- The same parallel port still works for the printer devices
- because of the relatively slow transfer speed of the printer.
- However, with a high-speed device, such as a F.I.T. Parallel-
- Port Trans-Series connected, the parallel port may find itself
- not able to keep up with the high-speed data transfer between
- the device and the CPU.
-
- Not all parallel ports are alike, especially when high-speed
- transfer is concerned. Some can be pushed to the limit; some
- perform badly when pushed. Fortunately in most cases, an
- workaround can be found. Please try the following:
-
- +++ Change Parallel Port Mode +++
- Many machines, especially Pentium's, come with manufacturer's
- CMOS default setup to non-EPP mode for parallel port. Some
- computers, when set to uni-directional port, shut off certain
- signals which may cause the Trans-Series not to work. It is a
- good idea to change into EPP mode which provides better
- performance and signal quality. If EPP mode is not available,
- try ECP/EPP mode next if it exists. Then try Bi-dir (Bi-
- directional) or ECP mode if available.
-
-
- *** Note on Printer Port Compatibility ***
-
- If you cannot access the Trans-Series, it is most likely that
- your printer port may not be fully IBM compatible. Try
- adjusting the Parallel Port Mode listed above.
-
- If you are using IBM PS/2 (or similar) machines which has DMA
- capability on the printer port, e.g., PS/2 models 56, 57, 76,
- 77 and 90XP, you MUST disable the "DMA Arbitration Level" of
- the printer port to use the Trans-Series.
-
- In order to do so, you can enter configuration (CMOS) setup
- mode at the system boot time. On PS/2 model 56, enter
- Ctl+Alt+Ins when cursor moves from upper left corner to right
- upper corner at system boot. Please refer to PS/2 User's
- Handbook for additional information.
-
-
- *** Advise on potential printer port I/O address ***
- *** conflict with other I/O card ***
-
- In some rare cases, some I/O adapter, especially LAN adapters,
- causes I/O address conflict to printer ports. These I/O
- adapters respond to full 32(20H) I/O addresses starting from
- its base I/O address, for instance, it occupies 360H-37fH when
- I/O address 360H is selected. In the example, it will cause
- conflict with printer port 378H. This problem is due to a
- design failure of that particular I/O adapter. To get around
- the problem simply uses the other I/O address for that adapter
- or printer port. Since I/O adapters allow a user to have many
- choices for I/O address, please try not to use I/O address of
- 3A0H, 360H, and 260H. It will make your potential printer I/O
- addresses 3BCH, 378H, and 278H, very safe.
-
- The common symptom for the above I/O conflict is that the
- Trans-Series hangs or runs with extremely poor performance.
-
-
- *** FITFIXED.SYS vs. FIT.SYS ***
-
- The default driver (FIT.SYS) reports the TransDisk/TransPorter
- as a removable device. This is appropriate for most instances.
- However, there are some programs that may not work properly
- with a removable device. In this case, the alternative driver
- (FITFIXED.SYS) can be used to treat the TransDisk/TransPorter
- as a non-removable device. But the drawback is that it does not
- work correctly when the TransPorter drawer or the TransDisk
- unit is changed.
-