I can't get my Z22 that is connected to a USB port to print from DOS edit, copy, print, or from Qbasic, all of which try to print to LPT1. Is there any way to do this other than connecting with a parallel cable? John

No.

If you ask about a USB in DOS driver you will be spammed by a company that has a fake DOS USB driver for only $10,000 if you want to "get in on the ground floor". Be very happy you didn't post your e-mail address.

Oh, and USB sucks!

Sad facts about DOS

It does not support USB
It does not support many modern printers (Even on LPT1)
It does not support CD/RW drives other than basic CD READ ONLY
It does not care for faster modems
It hates scanners

Have I missed any?

Other than that it still has its uses.

forget about FAt 32 or drives bigger than 2 Gigabytes, unless you use a drive manager..s l o w s drive d o w n. . .

There are drivers available for SCSI CD-RWs: Here.

With a little trickery, I haven't had any major problems getting any printer to work.

When I need to use a huge partition, I create it as an NTFS volume and then use NTFSDOS Pro to access it. Sneaky, yes?

As long as the modem is a hardware model, v.90 56k modems are no problem at all. Winmodems bite, anyways.

As long as the scanner uses a SCSI interface card they aren't a problem as well.

You are blaming DOS, but CD-Rs don't work in DOS because you cannot get a CD burning program that runs in DOS. You can print typed material to almost any printer that hooks to LPT 1. Drivers are only needed for graphics and fancy work.
More and more programs for DOS and Windows 3.11 are disappearing. This is why Windows 3.11 and DOS seem able to do less.
Windows 3.11 is a DOS program. My point is that many DOS programs have a graphic interface. Lotus 123 for example or Q&A database. They just do not need windows to run.

DOS supports fat32, and stop blaming it for "not supporting USB" --- it's manufacturers that don't support their products...the OS shouldn't be expected to support all future hardware built in.
- W0rm

I know that the best way to get a positive answer about DOS was to say it cannot do it! Guys you make my weekend with your positive repleys.

Happy to make your day, guy. I thought I might point out that with most Operating Systems (Windows '95c and '98 being the huge exceptions), it's best to choose your hardware to suit the OS(es)that you are going to use on a particular machine rather than try to fight non-compliant hardware into submission. For example, the machine I use to run MS-DOS 6.22 and Windows For Workgroups has the following components:

Asus P2L97-LX Motherboard

Celeron PPGA 533 MHZ (OC'ed to 600 mhz)

1 64 MB and 1 32 MB Crucial 100 MHZ SD-DIMMs

2 Quantum Fireball 7 GB hard drives

Plextor PX-W1210TS 12/10/32 SCSI CD-RW (will use this This Burning Software)

ATI Expert@Play 8 MB(comes with DOS VESA driver and Win 3x installer.)

ThunderLink v.90 56k hardware modem

3Com 3C900B-TPO NIC

Epson Stylus 500 printer (prints perfectly scaled colour documents from Corel Word Perfect 6.2 for DOS)

Creative AWE 64 sound card

Logitech wireless Mouseman Plus

Fujitsu 4725 Primier keyboard

Optiquest V655 monitor

As you can see, the machine is far better than "just make do", yet all of the components work perfectly under DOS. Aside from the Plexwriter and Celeron CPU, all of the components are discards from upgrading other machines or were purchased at a secondhand computer store. So, you can run some pretty up-to-date hardware and still be able to do most anything you want with DOS. I have a virtually identical (BX Motherboard) machine that runs SUN Solaris without any hardware issues. A little planing ahead can save you a bunch of headaches.

Actually, there is still a lot of DOS development going on out there. I suppose mainly because you dont need a huge bloated OS to do specfic tasks. Like, take an old junk 486 and make it into a router, or a web server, or your own dialup ISP - all possible with DOS programs still being developed. Or play DivX video's or Rip mp3's or Compose music Id venture to say I can do most of the stuff Im interrested in - in dos.
It's actully stable too... hmmm maybe Ive taked myslef into going back to DOS for awhile LOL - Here is a simple example of a few things you can do...
http://www.opus.co.tt/dave/

I'd still love to have a DOS USB driver specifically for a floppy disk. I'm running DR-DOS on my i-opener ("liberated" network appliance) that does not have a floppy interface at all, but does have USB. I can't use a parallel port floppy, because I'm using the i-opener to run my benchtop milling machine through that port. So right now, I'm limited to using direct cable connect through the serial port to get files in or out.