parallel port : Computer Hardware Buyers’ Glossary

by Roedy Green ©1997-2008 Canadian Mind Products
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parallel port

The connection on a computer to which you attach a printer. The connector on the computer is a 25-pin D-shaped female connector. The cable has a 25-pin D-shaped male connector on the computer end, and a round, mouth-like Centronics connector for the printer end. A common dirty trick of retailers is to leave out the printer cable, then charge $25 extra for it later. Make sure the cable is included when you buy a computer or a printer. Most computers have only one port, called LPT1: Some have a second one labelled LPT2: and a handful have even a third LPT3:. Printer cables should be as short as possible. Every extra foot means extra headaches and flaky operation. Never go beyond 10 feet unless you have special low capacitance cables. Since Windows-95 does not use the IRQs for its printer support, Windows-95 is fairly forgiving about configuring your parallel ports improperly. However, the following is how they should be set up.

port	address	IRQ
LPT1:	3BC	7
LPT2:	378	7
LPT3:	278	5

IRQ
serial port

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