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Parallel Interface

The Parallel Interface card sends printer (or other Centronics-style) output from Apple II software to a file on your computer.

What it does

  • Emulates an Apple Parallel Interface card in slots 1–7.
  • Captures guest output to a host file (one byte stream per “job”).
  • Shows a short on-screen toast with the filename when a capture file closes.

ImageWriter / PDF printer emulation is not required for basic capture — any software that prints to a parallel card will write to the attached file.

How to enable it

In the config editor

  1. Open + or Edit… from System Select.
  2. Click a slot and choose Parallel.
  3. Under Serial / Parallel, click that port and choose File or Clipboard (parallel ports allow None, File, or Clipboard).
  4. Save and launch.

In a .gs2 file

[[cards]]
slot = 1
card = "parallel"

[[connections]]
slot = 1
device = "file"

You can set an explicit path:

[[connections]]
slot = 1
device = "file"
path = "printouts/session.bin"

If you omit [[connections]], parallel defaults to File.

Older configs used output = "..." on the card entry. Prefer [[connections]] instead; legacy output is ignored at runtime.

Controlling capture while running

  1. Press F4 for the Control Panel.
  2. Click the parallel-port button.
  3. Choose File to capture to a host file, Clipboard to copy printout to the host clipboard, or None to disconnect.

Capture files use names like GS2.PARLn.YYYYMMDDHHMMSS. A file opens on the first byte written, closes after ~10 seconds of idle output or on Ctrl-Reset, and reopens on the next write. Closing shows a toast with the filename.