Historical Uses
Before the advent of USB, the parallel interface was adapted to access a number of peripheral devices other than printers. Probably one of the earliest devices to use parallel were dongles used as a hardware key form of software copy protection. Zip drives and scanners were early implementations followed by external modems, sound cards, webcams, gamepads, joysticks, external hard disk drives and CD-ROM drives. Some of the earliest portable MP3 players required a parallel port connection for transferring songs to the device. Adapters were available to run SCSI devices via parallel. Other devices such as EPROM programmers and hardware controllers could be connected via the parallel port.
Read more about this topic: Parallel Port
Famous quotes containing the word historical:
“We need a type of theatre which not only releases the feelings, insights and impulses possible within the particular historical field of human relations in which the action takes place, but employs and encourages those thoughts and feelings which help transform the field itself.”
—Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956)
“Some of us still get all weepy when we think about the Gaia Hypothesis, the idea that earth is a big furry goddess-creature who resembles everybody’s mom in that she knows what’s best for us. But if you look at the historical record—Krakatoa, Mt. Vesuvius, Hurricane Charley, poison ivy, and so forth down the ages—you have to ask yourself: Whose side is she on, anyway?”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)