On Sun, Feb 05, 2006 at 09:26:43AM -0200, Gerhard Fiedler wrote:
> Wouter van Ooijen wrote:
> 
> >> Are USB-parallel converters common at all? To be honest, I have not
> >> seen a physical one yet. USB-seral converter is much more common.
> > 
> > Both in the computer shops in town and at my main supplier they are as
> > common as a serial converter, and cheaper. Maybe because they don't need
> > a voltage converter. But the big centronics connector makes them clumsy.
> 
> The cheapest hit on pricewatch.com has a db25 female connector; that's
> better to use than the Centronics. 
> 
> But it still costs $13 (and the warranty sounds kind of strange). If the
> goal is to make a low-cost PIC programmer, a programmed PIC for a "real"
> programmer is probably cheaper.

I started this thread. Cheap isn't the sole goal. Part of it is to maintain
some measure of control of the hardware. If one cannot build any type of
device that can be directly controlled by the user, then that user is now
dependent for others to supply hardware for them.

PIC programmers are going that route. Early in the PIC game there were
tons of programmers (NoPPP, Tait, JDM, etc.) that one could put together
for oneself. With the bastardization of the serial port, and the impending
disappearace of the parallel port (already gone from most modern laptops)
such devices no longer work.

So the cables represent one of the few commodity links to allowing for 
direct control of hardware on a PC.

BAJ
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