Foo - Do laptops come with parallel ports?

Do most modern laptops come with parallel ports? In the somewhat near future, I am considering replacing my laptop with something a little more powerful. Only thing is, it needs to have a parallel port. Somebody told me laptops never come with parallel ports nowadays. Is this true?

Just checked my Inspiron 9400. No parallel port.

no most compact models only have usb and VGAout now ... a port replicator will usually have one if you buy that accessory.

:(. Why would they take away the parallel port? :(
*sigh*

It's big and ugly and space is a premium.. also you'd probably snap it off eventually if you used it alot.. most don't even have a serial port now. you may be able to find a usb converter

What the hell is a parallel port?

I suppose it is simply progress. If you look at most newer printers they are USB as well. If hooking up your printer is of concern, I suppose the prices of newer printers are less shocking than they used to be.

Bye the way, on most new laptops, floppy drives are an optional (and usually external) add-on.

USB takes up a good deal less space than parallel.

I don't care about the floppy drive. I lost the one I have on my current laptop, It's somewhere around hte house I think. The parallel port is very useful, with many different outputs and inputs. I guess I can't use a laptop for what I wanted.

:(. Why would they take away the parallel port? :(
*sigh*

Because it has become outdated like the floppy drive. Just buy a USB to Parallel adaptor.

Because it has become outdated like the floppy drive. Just buy a USB to Parallel adaptor.

I don't see how a USB-Parallel adapter would work for my needs. Only a parallel port offers the ability to control so much. I can produce a 5v pulse on any given port at any frequency. I can control relays. A USB does not have that amount of inputs and outputs.
It is as if laptops are made not to connection to anything useful. I did find a few parallel port adapters that give full function. Maybe I would be better off buying a computer

Some of the pc's nowadays do not come with parallel ports, years ago built a robot needed the parallel port to control it, would have no idea how to do it nowadays.

Geez.....you guys made me look behind my laptop...:p

Have you found anyone in your area or through contacts at work who has experience working with automation systems? They might have experience dealing with this sort of thing, although I suspect they may have specialized cards ($$$) to interface with some of the really fancy controllers.

Fortunately, all the stuff I've had to work with, the drivers are programmable via serial or ethernet...they don't need a drive signal directly from the computer. And for anything that doesn't have a standard interface, work ponies up for it. I hate to suggest it, but it sounds like you might be in for quite a bit of jury rigging to come up with an affordable solution. I wish I knew enough about the stuff you're working with to help more, but frankly, it sounds like you're the bikeforums foo expert on motor controllers. :D

Parallel ports have been gone for like 10 years, what are you on about? Printers switched to a IEEE1284 port YEARS ago. I haven't seen a true parallel port since the early 90s. Although....the interface may be compatible.

see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_1284
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centronics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centronics_printer_port

I wouldn't expect to see them much more (if at all) even on desktops, much less laptops. You should be able to find a pci or pci-express card that has one on it if you need it.

I think he really does mean IEEE-1284 bi-directional when he says "parallel port". Or at least that's what he needs.

Just buy a used laptop from fleaBay with real serial and parallel ports.

:(. Why would they take away the parallel port? :(
*sigh*

Because it's old and obsolete, that's why.

http://www.quatech.com/catalog/parallel_pcmcia.php
http://sewelldirect.com/ParallelPCMCIACard.asp

I don't see how a USB-Parallel adapter would work for my needs. Only a parallel port offers the ability to control so much. I can produce a 5v pulse on any given port at any frequency. I can control relays. A USB does not have that amount of inputs and outputs.
It is as if laptops are made not to connection to anything useful. I did find a few parallel port adapters that give full function. Maybe I would be better off buying a computer

Information goes a long way in stating what you want. I would suggest keeping your old laptop for your robotics use.

serial and parralel ports have went the way of the floppy drive...

OK all jackassery of mine aside.

Find a powered USB parralel adaptor. They do exist.

My co-worker uses a USB serial adaptor, and he found it works just as well as a regular serial port for communication purposes.

If you need a traditional parralel port badly enough, why not just get a VIA EPIA motherboard, and make a compact dedicated use computer for your needs?

I think I am just going to keep my laptop. I may actually buy a new computer, and use what I have now for my needs. In actuality, I don't need a lot of processing power for what I do. 2.8ghz will be way more than I need. But the prices of these computer goods has gone down so much, I don't mind.

What are you looking at controlling with the port?

What are you looking at controlling with the port?
A few things:
Four stepper motor drives. Each drive needs two output pins dedicated to it.

There will be also limit switches, which will one input pins. Three limit switches.

And two of the pins will go to control an AC relay.

There will also be an Emergency stop. When pushed, it will send a signal to the computer. Therefor, it needs one pin.

Down the road there will also be a need for one pin per stepper drive to notify the computer if there has been a stall detection, or a fault of any sort.

I have a Great Pentium 90 laptop with a bi-directional parallel port.

http://retro-computing.blogspot.com/2006/08/nec-versa-4050-laptop.html

But you can't have it. I <3 it way too much. 3 hours on a charge (I bought a brand new battery for it a year ago).

BTW, some of you GEEKY retro grouches might enjoy the rest of that blog:

http://retro-computing.blogspot.com/

Have you thought of something like a PIC microcontroller kit or a BASIC STAMP which I'm sure has I/O ports you can use just the same. You can even program them in basic I think.

You guys are hillarious. They are not obsolete they just aren't in full circulation. I can think of many applications especially when working with interfaces, core controls etc.

Phantom,

I keep an old toshiba laptop for just such occasions. Its a handy tool to have around.

There is something on the market which does do that sort of. Basically with the setup I and every other hobbyist has, the computer has to generate a huge pulse train to get these stepper motors to turn. Consider it takes 200 steps for my motors to make 1 revolution, and there are at least 3. Then they are set to microstepping, so it takes 800 microsteps to make one revolution. That means 800 pulses the computer needs to generate. And of course I am going over 60RPM, probably more like 3 or 400RPM. So thats a lot of pulses. Pulses are 5v emitted from the parallel across the appropriate pins.
http://www.geckodrive.com/product.cfm?pid=19

That device takes care of all the pulse generating for you. You only need to connect to it via USB or ethernet and the computer "tells it what it needs", and that thing generates the pulses. But as you can see, you would need one hell of a setup to justify 400 dollars for it. The computer is meant to do smarter work than generating a pulse train like that, this saves it from doing this and allows for much faster operation because it can generate a faster pulse train than your PC. But I still need the parallel port to respond to tripped limit switches, E stops, fault detections, and activate relays.

You guys are hillarious. They are not obsolete they just aren't in full circulation. I can think of many applications especially when working with interfaces, core controls etc.

Phantom,

I keep an old toshiba laptop for just such occasions. Its a handy tool to have around.

I am definitely keeping my current laptop! I heard that recent laptops only emit 3.3v from their parallel port instead of the full 5. I guess that was a precursor to their extinction on hte backs of laptops.
It is as if they made these laptops to not connect to anything useful. I see RS232 connections required all the time

Someday my space satellite WILL work :D

[edit] WITH an rs232 input

Someday my space satellite WILL work :D

[edit] WITH an rs232 input
That sounds zippity fast. :rolleyes:

One of the nice thing about parallel interfaces is you have direct-mapped memory addressing. I program EPROMs on automotive EFI systems and I can use a chip-emulator to replace the factory chip while tuning on the dyno. The software just dumps the chip-image to the chip-emulator through the parallel port by writing to an address-range (the parallel's port address-range is mapped to a physical memory location). Changes to the programming is instant. Then when the customized fine-tune map is done, I burn a chip with those settings, yank the emulator board, stick in the chip and that's it. :)

One of the nice thing about parallel interfaces is you have direct-mapped memory addressing. I program EPROMs on automotive EFI systems and I can use a chip-emulator to replace the factory chip while tuning on the dyno. The software just dumps the chip-image to the chip-emulator through the parallel port by writing to an address-range (the parallel's port address-range is mapped to a physical memory location). Changes to the programming is instant. Then when the customized fine-tune map is done, I burn a chip with those settings, yank the emulator board, stick in the chip and that's it. :)

I thought I was the only one who did on-the-fly parallel-port PROM emulation on a dyno (without being one of the people working at Superchips, Diablo/ProgramaTools, Hypertech, Hondata, Nismo etc).

My Beater Escort gets 42 MPG but still pulls insanely hard when you get on it. I <3 electronic engine controls.