ports Ports (COM & LPT)

The Ports (COM & LPT) page contains settings related to the emulated machine’s I/O ports.

LPT1-3 Device

Emulated device to connect to the given parallel (LPT) port.

  • None: no device connected.

  • Disney Sound Source: sound device with a resistor ladder DAC (digital-to-analog converter) and FIFO, supported by many games.

  • LPT DAC / Covox Speech Thing: sound device with a simple resistor ladder DAC, supported by many games (through compatibility with the Disney Sound Source above), demos and trackers.

  • Stereo LPT DAC: stereo version of the LPT DAC, using the Strobe pin to select the active output channel.

  • Generic Text Printer: simple printer capable of outputting text only.

    • Printed documents are saved as .txt files in the printer subdirectory found in the emulated machine’s directory.

  • Generic ESC/P Dot-Matrix: EPSON ESC/P-compatible printer.

    • Printed pages are saved as .png files in the printer subdirectory found in the emulated machine’s directory.

    • Use the EPSON LQ-2500 printer driver for best results.

    • This printer will not work if the included freetype.dll file is missing from the 86Box directory.

  • Generic PostScript Printer: PostScript-compatible printer with PDF output.

    • Printed documents are saved as .ps files in the printer subdirectory found in the emulated machine’s directory. These files are automatically converted to .pdf once printing is completed.

    • The original .ps files may remain in the directory if PDF conversion fails, or if the included gsdll32.dll or gsdll64.dll file is missing from the 86Box directory.

    • Use the generic PostScript printer driver provided by your operating system.

    • Windows 95 and newer do not have a generic PostScript driver; use the Apple LaserWriter IIf driver for grayscale, or the Apple Color LW 12/660 PS driver for color.

  • PLIP Network: A Parallel Line Internet Protocol cable connected to the emulated network.

    • The emulated network adapter must also be set to [LPT] PLIP.

    • PLIP is compatible with the DOS plip.com packet driver and the Linux plip driver (only with interrupts enabled). It is not compatible with the Windows Direct Cable Connection feature or any other parallel port networking implementations.

    • PLIP works best with the SLiRP network type due to its point-to-point nature.

Serial port 1-4

Enable emulation of serial ports ranging from COM1 to COM4. Any ports not provided by the machine’s motherboard will be emulated as generic ISA or VLB serial cards.

Parallel port 1-3

Enable emulation of parallel ports ranging from LPT1 to LPT3. Any ports not provided by the machine’s motherboard will be emulated as generic ISA or VLB parallel cards.