Linux 6.10 Shows People Are Still Using USB To Parallel Port Adapters In 2024

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Linux 6.10 Shows People Are Still Using USB To Parallel Port Adapters In 2024

Greg Kroah-Hartman sent out the USB/Thunderbolt changes this morning for the Linux 6.10 merge window that is wrapping up this weekend. Surprisingly, in 2024, a new USB to parallel printer port adapter variant is being introduced with Linux 6.10...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.10-USB

[timofonic]

Parallel port is very easy to use in hobbyist electronics projects.

There are even vintage sounds cards using it, such as Covox and variants.

Many retro stuff use parallel port. Even stuff such as Super WildCard DX, a snes cartridge emulator that has both 3.5 floppy disk drive and a parallel port.

Many old electronics lab hardware use it too. Those were high end hardware and still usable with very little service, still appreciated and quite sold second hand over ebay and such.

Never underestimate this stuff.

[skeevy420]

Parallel port is very easy to use in hobbyist electronics projects.

There are even vintage sounds cards using it, such as Covox and variants.

Many retro stuff use parallel port. Even stuff such as Super WildCard DX, a snes cartridge emulator that has both 3.5 floppy disk drive and a parallel port.

Many old electronics lab hardware use it too. Those were high end hardware and still usable with very little service, still appreciated and quite sold second hand over ebay and such.

Never underestimate this stuff.

Plus one of the things the USB and universal plug folks always tout is "you can always just buy an adapter". Well, here's the adapter. Use it on one of your PC's 42 USB ports.

It sucks when it's an iPhone or Android and you only have the one damn port so you can only do one thing. If you're gonna get rid of the damn headphone jack, offer two USB-C ports, dammit.

[zexelon]

Plus one of the things the USB and universal plug folks always tout is "you can always just buy an adapter". Well, here's the adapter. Use it on one of your PC's 42 USB ports.

It sucks when it's an iPhone or Android and you only have the one damn port so you can only do one thing. If you're gonna get rid of the damn headphone jack, offer two USB-C ports, dammit.

Never really thought about it because I dont use a phone for "productive" work, but its a very fair point! 2 USB ports on the phone would make a ton of sense!

[timofonic]

Plus one of the things the USB and universal plug folks always tout is "you can always just buy an adapter". Well, here's the adapter. Use it on one of your PC's 42 USB ports.

It sucks when it's an iPhone or Android and you only have the one damn port so you can only do one thing. If you're gonna get rid of the damn headphone jack, offer two USB-C ports, dammit.

There's tiny usb hubs. I have a big powered one and many very small ones. I would prefer two usb ports at least.

I often use the phone by many unstandard stuff, I like to tinker with it. I always use rooted phones and will never use one that isn't. I had to repair an old phone because it was a cheapo one and the connector was quite low quality, so now I always buy a high end one that lasts many years of (ab)use instead.

[skeevy420]

There's tiny usb hubs. I have a big powered one and many very small ones. I would prefer two usb ports at least.

I often use the phone by many unstandard stuff, I like to tinker with it. I always use rooted phones and will never use one that isn't. I had to repair an old phone because it was a cheapo one and the connector was quite low quality, so now I always buy a high end one that lasts many years of (ab)use instead.

I used to be that way, but I just have the one phone and had too many close calls back in the day to want to tinker too much without a backup plan. I still have a Lapdock 500 put up somewhere as far old, nerdy docks go. Got that to tinker with my Atrix HD, but it never really worked right since it wasn't made for that phone. I outta get some adapter cables and see how/if it works with modern Android one of these days.

My phone is out of warranty, I can unlock the bootloader, and it does have a few custom roms available. It's ironically funny to me that I'm not running something custom when practically every phone I had in the past had locked bootloaders that needed hacks and whatnot and I was romming the shit out of them. Hell, back then I'd rebuild the rom with Ofast, blackjack, and hookers, in fact, forget the Ofast, because I was competent enough to follow a step by step guide

[cthart]

One of the companies I work for has label printers some of which still have parallel ports. As long as the printers keep going we haven't replaced them with newer models which are USB only.

[CommunityMember]

Never underestimate this stuff.

A number of the dot matrix pin feed printers that you see at the airport gate under the counter (where the pilot is gets his printout of information about the upcoming flight) were parallel port only (and likely are still driven as parallel port printers, even if newer designed printers may have additional interface options).

[SteamPunker]

From what I understood, pretty much all of these USB-to-Centronics adapters only support higher level printer and scanner functionality, and do not support bit banging. So driving CNC machines or sound devices such as the Covox Speech Thing is not possible with these things. I know that those are very niche applications, but industrial users and hobbyists that require the full functionality of an actual IEEE 1284 parallel port won't be able to use these solutions.

I believe someone developed an adapter once that would support bit banging, but I'm not sure.

[oiaohm]

From what I understood, pretty much all of these USB-to-Centronics adapters only support higher level printer and scanner functionality, and do not support bit banging. So driving CNC machines or sound devices such as the Covox Speech Thing is not possible with these things.

Half right/half wrong answer. USB to Electronics cannot be used to drive direct control CNC machines or Covox Speech its not bit banging limitation Both of these require very tight timings. Yes you can bit bang on them but latency for bit changing is the problem., The translation from USB data stream to data pin of the parallel port takes time that you don't have for correct operation of direct control CNC or Covox Speech.

Please note I said direct control CNC machines. Indirect control CNC machines some of those you basically print the gcode to the controller. Why parallel instead of serial back in the day for the indirect control CNC is the speed of transfer with the old parallel port being 2 megabytes per second vs your old RS232 that caps out at 350kbps.

Do note that 2 megabytes per second that is 16 mbps yes faster than your early 10mbps networking. Reality indirect control CNC machines connected by parallel ports are basically over grown printers.