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Port vs. speed

U

Ulysses

Platinum Member
Hewlett Packard support told me to connect my 812C inkjet printer to the LPT1 port and to set the port to ECP mode in the BIOS. They said parallel is faster than USB.

In general - not just for printers - what is the effective speed of the various ports? And does it matter how many devices are connected - e.g., with USB?
Thanx. 🙂

 
InkJets are not fast enough to worry about the difference. They all print slower than their spool can fill.

The issue really is the battle for IRQs. If you are fighting for more IRQs, then USB can provide the best solution today. Tomorrow, IEEE 1394 and/or USB 2.

As long as each parallel port or serial port costs another precious IRQ, and you are trying to other things like broadband, LAN, and digital imagery processing, ... then those ports become expendable by necessity.
 
What he should have said is that parallel is a little more reliable than USB. USB is a little flaky sometimes especially when some of the chipsets (VIA) seem to have a problem geting USB devices to act right.
 
What he should have said was this: 😛

standard parallel port: 115kBYTES/s (.115MBYTES/s)
USB: 12Mbits/s (1.5MBYTES/s)
ECP/EPP parallel port: 24Mbits/s (3MBYTES/s)


So, in answer to your question. Yes, parallel ports are faster if in ECP/EPP (set in bios) and the bandwidth on USB is shared.


 
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