That's why I keep "old" PC's alive and running. I've yet to see a parallel port adapter, for example, that has all the features of the "old" architecture. I often need bidirectional or EPP standard functions. The only thing that the USB-based adapters I've seen support is ECP. While one can't do much without ECP, it's not the be-all and end-all.

I suppose they're trying to simplify PC's to look like notebooks. I'm not a big notebook fan, though I do own a few. They're old, too, however, and have the parallel port and serial port, though only one. Since there's so little of use to me that I can do with what's in a modern notebook, I'll probably never own one.

RE