On May 19, 2009, at 7:23 AM, Gary Hoffman wrote:
Yeah, parallel ports are pretty much done now. Printers used to use
them,
but none of them do any more. In fact (I may have missed one) I
don't think
you can even buy a common printer any more (new) with a parallel
port. They
pretty much use USB.
That's for sure. I occasionally see requests for parallel printers
from people with old computers that can not afford to replace them,
but can't even find a new parallel port printer, while USB ones sell
here for as low as $50.
The only two current interfaces being actively supported are
Ethernet and USB.
For disks E(external) SATA and FireWire 400/800 are still popular, but
FireWire is destined to be replaced by USB 3.
The more expensive printers here have WiFI and or Bluetooth, but
Office Depot last month had on sale a $50 BlueTooth Scanner/Printer
combination.
Sure, you can still find serial ports here
and there, but they too are becoming a legacy item and are not long
for this
world. The USB to serial converter is about as close as you can
come. I
don't know either, if there is a USB to parallel converter, but I
would
doubt it as one is a serial protocol and the other is a parallel
protocol.
There are USB to Parallel adaptors. You don't find them often as such,
they are sold as USB to parallel printer cables. HP and many other
companies used them inside their early USB devices, many first
generation USB scanners were parallel port ones with internal USB to
parallel adaptors and no external parallel port.
The problem with both the USB to serial and USB to parallel adaptors
is that they are not designed to be used as anything except bridges to
the devices that match the port. Most of them do not support the
control or data collection applications that used them because they
worked as a side effect of their old design.
BTW, unless Microsoft changed their policy, Windows Vista only
supports Parallel ports on a motherboard, not expansion ones or USB
ones. Those need drivers from the manufacturer and may not be
functional as anything except modem (serial) and printer (parallel)
ports depending upon what the manufacturer wanted to support.
Geoff.
--
geoffrey mendelson N3OWJ/4X1GM
Jerusalem Israel geoffreymendelson@gmail.com
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