Hi Daniel,
thanks for your input. I think it is a windows issue: In windows/settings/ game controllers/ it shows the controller has become unresponsive. Unplugging and waiting for it to re-register makes the gamepad come to life again.
But this even happens each time when I enter a manual command so its rather cumbersome. Win is XP. Old, I know, but I need the parralel port.
I tried other USB ports too, always the same.
regards, Maarten Visser