PC Hacks

Hack #14. Configure Parallel Ports

Set up your parallel ports in ways that accommodate your peripherals and your other expansion needs.

Although LPT ports are seldom used for much of anything (even printers, since most now use USB) these days, the occasion may arise when you need to use the port to hook up an old external disk drive to recover some important files or an old scanner to capture a document or photo, or to connect two PCs with a special transfer cable to migrate data from an old PC to a new one. Knowing the basics of your LPT ports will make these tasks easier.

Before you can use an LPT port, you need to have one, so you need to find out if you do. There are specific ways to tell if you have one or more LPT ports on your system:

• Look at the back of your PC to see if there is a connector with 25 female pin holes in two rows of 13 and 12, respectively, surrounded by a trapezoidal or D-shaped metal shell. This connector is known as a DB-25 female .

  Unfortunately, other types of interfaces use the same connector style—typically older SCSI ports and, rarely seen in the general PC population, connections for special test equipment.

  The presence of these connectors does not tell you specifically that there are LPT port electronics wired between the connectors and your system board—these may be fillers for the addition of an LPT port later on.

  The presence of these connectors also does not tell you if they are connected to an add-in card plugged into an ISA or PCI slot or directly ...