USB to Parallel port

We have done the same thing. I *think* I had to do a little fiddling with the driver to make it/them fall on a "legacy" port address, but it worked.

If the program just requires that you specify a LPT port and then lets the OS worry about the resources that the BIOS assigns then the driver doesn't need to know the resources. Windows 7 or 8 will even let an application write directly to I/O addresses. So if the "newer PC" runs Windows 7 or 8 some really old devices and applications won't be usable (though running Windows XP as a virtual machine under Windows 7 professional may work but probably not).

Yes, it really is one of those "Depends" things, but I used to run an old LPT port based programmer, that used direct access to the port hardware, under "VMWare Workstation" running WinXP Pro and the programmers LPT port driver. Worked great.

I did buy an ExpressCard to Parallel Port adapter that works for my legacy application. It just arrived today. This is a PCIe to parallel device as opposed to some other ExpressCard to Parallel Port adapters that area a USB to parallel device (avoid these).

It's this one .

The Shentech 33006 or 33014 would probably have also worked but I didn't find it until after I ordered the other one .

The one I bought shows up as LPT3. Here's how it looks in Device Manager: .

I think that the only way to use a laptop and get a "real" parallel port is through one of these cards. Of course very few new laptops have ExpressCard slots anymore, but some do so choose carefully. Look at Thinkpads.

For a modern desktop use something like

If the application tries to write directly to the parallel port hardware I/O address then these probably won't work, but if they just need an LPT port number then they probably will work.