Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!pilchuck!toad!jgray
From: jgray@toad.pilchuck.Data-IO.COM (Jerry Late Nite Gray)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Why no Parallels?
Message-ID: <833@pilchuck.Data-IO.COM>
Date: 24 Feb 88 05:07:52 GMT
References: <673@pasteur.Berkeley.Edu> <4292@sigi.Colorado.EDU> <223@mccc.UUCP>
Sender: news@Data-IO.COM
Lines: 29
Summary: not all parallels are equal.......

In article <223@mccc.UUCP>, pjh@mccc.UUCP (Peter J. Holsberg) writes:
> In article <3271@cup.portal.com> Isaac_K_Rabinovitch@cup.portal.com writes:
> |One thing I don't understand:  why don't more packages support parallel?
> 
> My understanding is that the PC's parallel port is set up by the BIOS to
> be "output-only".  (Of course, port B on that 8255 *could* be
> reprogrammed  to make it an input port, so I'm as puzzled as you!)

We were wondering about the same thing a while back in trying to consider
how to make a better connection to the PEECEE. One of the things that turned
up was that the parallel ports in many so-called compatibles have slightly
differently implementations as far as reading is concerned. Reading a port
MAY be possible but it frequently requires changing a jumper or cutting a 
trace or two to get it to work. I don't know the exact details of this
(I personally didn't look into the problem). 

Maybe someone else out there can fill in the details.


---------------
					Jerrold L. Gray

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