[rescue] Parallel ports [was Re: Slightly OT: ?Bad Cap Saga]

[Curious George]

--- On Thu, 8/21/08, der Mouse <mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG> wrote:

> > Is it really that much of a problem?  USB to parallel converters are
> > sold in lots of places and they work fine with printers.
> 
> And, I expect, they are hopeless for use as parallel ports
> (in contrast to printer interfaces layered atop parallel ports).
> When I speak of connecting things to a parallel port, I'm talking
> about using them as an 8 bits out, 5 bits in parallel port.
> Not as some kind of "parallel
> port restricted to use as a printer interface" botch.

Ah, then your better bet is to move to a serial interface with
some brains (which could just be a simple FSM) at the other end
so the contents of the data stream itself encodes the transaction(s)
you want.  Then, you can just push that data stream through
"whatever" technology is present.

I.e., do everything "in-band".

> I say "I expect" because I've never tried
> them.  The host side of USB
> is way too intricate - another advantage of the real thing.