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Originally Posted by Gdeaver
With a modern multitasking operating system like windows XP, using the parallel port is a pain.
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Since this was mentioned, I'll note that any of the NT-series operating systems do not permit direct access to the parallel port (over port 378h, for instance). They instead require that a driver be used, which has kernel-mode access; the software will interface with the driver, instead of directly altering port states.
There are lots of third-party software components which streamline this access and encapsulate it into an ActiveX, .NET or other (e.g. VCL for Delphi) component. Finding a free one of those might be necessary, unless you like the prospects of running MS-DOS 7.11 or Windows 98, in real- or protected-mode.