[vox-tech] computer pretending to be a printer

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Ken Bloom (kabloom at ucdavis.edu):

> Well, in terms of the parallel solution - the machine's parallel port
> could probably only speak printerese - not PLIP. 

Parallel ports that cannot do PLIP exist but are rare.  Any such port
that can do ECP or EPP extensions to the original Centronics port design
is fine (with the aforementioned laplink cable) -- and those have been,
in my experience, the rule rather than the exception for about a decade.  

For better or worse, what's killing PLIP is actually the increasing
omission of Centronics parallel ports entirely -- because USB is
basically better in every way, other than being a neat if obscure medium
for IP transport.  

Don't try to cross-connect two computers over USB, by the way[1].  At
best, it won't work.  At worst, you'll burn something out.

[1] With the possible exception of weird-ass interconnect boxes that
might be constructed for that explicit purpose.  What I mean is:  Don't
try to use a USB hub as if it were an ethernet hub.