Parallel or USB

[actrinh]

thanks for the previous suggestions on getting a scanner. I forgot to ask, should I get a USB scanner or parallel? thanks.

[jeepman]

I still like parallel because you can set to port to EPP which is something like 1.2mbps. Of course, USB is up to 12mbps, but I use NT 4.0, and probably will continue for some time since I will wait for better Win2K support.

With NT, I free up the USB IRQ by turning it off...

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ABIT BP6, 192MB PC100 RAM, dual 366 Celerons oc'd to 550MHz, 3DFXCool GlobalWin FEP32 'Lil Mofo' h/s fans. G400 DH, 3COM 905B NIC, Buslogic FlashPoint LW Ultra-Wide SCSI, SB16 ISA. Segate Medalist PRO 9.1 GB UW SCSI 7200RPM, Maxtor 20.4GB ATA66 7200RPM 2MB Cache, 8GB tape b/u, IDE 32x CDROM, SCSI 4xwrite/8xread Panasonic CD writer, 4 more various 2GB SCSI drives.

[Brian Ellis]

IMHO, if your computer and the scanner support USB, go that way every time. Second best is SCSI. I'm always scared stiff using so-called see-through adapters (including dongles) for things they were never meant for: they are often botches which you pay a heavy functionality price for. USB was designed for full I/O. Centronics parallel port was really meant originally only for output to a printer. Probably also you may not be able to scan while printing with the printer port.

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Brian (the terrible)

[kidspot]

One other consideration is that the printer may not be accesible unless the scanner is turned on. You may also have to reboot each time you wish to use the scanner, unless it was turned on when the last boot occured. Those are the 2 gripes I've had with my current parallel scanner. Other than those it works fine

[SteveC]

IF you go parallel - definitely get a 2nd Parallel port!

If you have a scanner which is constantly monitored by the PC (like, open the lid and a scanner dialog pops up), and the printer has fancy software too (Epson's spring to mind), then they clash BIG time. Go USB all the way, you won't regret it, if even only for the speed.

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Cheers,
Steve

"The chances of anything coming from Mars, are a million-to-one", he said.

[inperson]

I used to work for HP customer care. And They had a printer and a scanner they were selling as a pair. The printer hooked to the scanner and the scanner went to the port like a pass through device. These two products were being marketed like they were built for each other, but you would NOT BELIEVE what a bitch it was to get them working together.

My suggestion is that if you have a parallel printer or any other parallel devices, get a usb scanner to prevent any possible conflicts. If you have a usb printer and have nothing on your parallel port, You should have no problems and you might save some cash cuz parallel ones are cheaper. But more than one device on your parallel port can cause conflicts.

The strange thing is when I did tech support, some times people would have a dongle, a zip drive, a cd burner, a scanner and a printer all on their parallel port and everything worked but the printer. Weird huh?