NOVELL TECHNICAL BULLETIN

             TITLE:  Printing From Parallel Port on IBM PC
                     Monochrome/Parallel Board
      DOCUMENT ID#:  TB.P.294
              DATE:  6 August 1991
           PRODUCT:  NetWare 286
  PRODUCT REVISION:  2.1x
        SUPERSEDES:  N/A

           SYMPTOM:  Port Not Recognized in Printer Maintenance

ISSUE/PROBLEM

The original IBM PC Monochrome/Parallel board, when placed in a
NetWare 286 v2.1x server, may not be recognized by the Printer
Maintenance area of Netgen.  This board is a full-length 8 bit
board with a 9 pin monochrome adaptor port and a 25 pin parallel
port.  The words "BLACK & WHITE/PARALLEL" also appear on the board
just above the bus connector.

In setting up core printing on a v2.1x file server, Netgen looks at
the DOS device list available for the file server machine and then
tests each possible device (or printer port) by examining its
status register.  If this status register test produces a return
value of 0xFF, Netgen will not list the device as being valid.  

In the case of the IBM PC Monochrome/Parallel Board, the status
register test often returns a value of 0xFF unless a printer
(which, in certain cases, may need to be on and on-line) is
connected or a loopback plug is used.
  
SOLUTION:

When using this original IBM PC Monochrome/Parallel board and
attempting to set up core printing in NetWare v2.1x it will likely
be necessary to connect a printer to the parallel port and activate
it or connect a loopback plug in order for the port to be
recognized by Netgen as a valid device.

Other comparable third-party boards, which may even have the same
lettering ("BLACK & WHITE/PARALLEL") as the IBM board, have been
known to experience the same problem.  The same solution should
apply to all occurrences of this phenomenon.