F/Port (tm) High speed printing for the PC Now with support for Windows NT!

Warp Nine’s F/Port provides a high-speed connection to any printer or plotter using the Centronics interface, improving throughput from 10 to 50 times or more over that of ordinary parallel ports. F/Port sends data to the printer as fast as the printer can accept it.

In benchmark tests F/Port sends burst data to a Brother International HL10h at 550 KByte/sec, an HP LaserJet IV at 600 KByte/sec, and a Lexmark 4039 at nearly 1 MByte per second! In one test a 24.5 MByte Corel Draw file that took 24 minutes to print via an ordinary parallel port was printed through F/Port in only 100 seconds. F/Port delivers the laser printer performance you need, and purchased.

Customized Hardware Interface

F/Port's hardware is based on field programmable gate array (FPGA) technology. This means that the F/Port's hardware "personality" is downloaded to the F/Port, not etched in silicon. This architecture, the FPGA combined with an onboard 512 byte FIFO, allows us to provide a single parallel port card that is optimized to provide the maximum throughput to a number of different printers. For example, personalities are provided for printers from Metrum, Sienna Imaging, Hewlett-Packard, Lexmark, Unisys, Texas Instruments and Brother International, among others.

F/Port's FPGA design provides a convenient path for customized vertical applications. This is especially attractive to OEM customers requiring custom parallel port protocols optimized to their requirements. An example of F/Port's unique capability is allowing custom hardware personality to make the parallel port look like a printer. This can be used in applications such as having one PC "print" to another PC.

Applications

F/Port is especially useful installed where CAD, desktop publishing, and imaging systems are sending large and complex graphics files to a printer or plotter. With the onboard FIFO, the F/Port allows the user to regain control of the PC faster than normal, easily overcoming the slow, parallel port bottleneck existing between a PC and peripheral device.

Software

The F/Port comes with standard port drivers for DOS, Windows 3.1 and Windows NT. Application software can gain instant performance by just printing through these drivers, without any additional software changes. To gain maximum performance from the card, many applications have been modified to drive the card directly. Warp Nine can provide developers with all of the information needed to interface your application directly to the F/Port.

Features

• High speed Centronics communication
• Field upgradable
• On board 512 byte FIFO buffer
• Supports custom personalities
• Simple register interface
• Standard personalities include:
  FPORT- Encad plotter, compatible printers
  HPLJ4- Hewlett-Packard LaserJet
  METRUM- Metrum/Sienna Imaging Foto Printer
  LEX4039- Lexmark 4039 series printers
  OPTRA- Lexmark OPTRA series printers
  AP9300- Unisys Printers
  TI600- Texas Instruments microLaser Pro 600
• Optional personalities: PRINTER- Printer input
• Runs under DOS, Windows 3.x, Windows NT v3.51 & v4.0 (no XP or Win 2K drivers)
  
• ISA bus interface (requires one slot for installation)
• 3 year warranty - Made in the U.S.A.

510-0002 F/Port - Discontinued

Click here to download the F/Port Register Description.

Click here to download the F/Port Printer Personality Register Description.

Click here to download the F/Port Manual.

Drivers: Windows NT DOS/Win3.x

Click here to download a one page datasheet.