Parallel port printer port or Centronics port found on most personal computers from the 1970s through the 2000s. It was an industry "de facto" standard for many years, and was finally standardized as IEEE 1284 in the late 1990s, which defined the Enhanced Parallel Port (EPP) and Extended Capability Port (ECP) bi-directional versions. Today, the parallel port interface is virtually non-existent because of the rise of Universal Serial Bus (USB) devices, along with network printing using Ethernet and Wi-Fi connected printers. The parallel port interface was originally known as the Parallel Printer Adapter on IBM PC-compatible computers. It was primarily designed to
Serial cable correspond to a fixed length of cable since varying cables have different characteristics. Empirically tested combinations of bit rate, serial ports, cable type, and lengths may provide reliable communications, but generally RS-232-compatible ports are intended to be connected by, at the most, a few tens of metres of cable. Other serial communications standards are better adapted to drive hundreds or thousands of metres of cable. This cable has short transmission distance because of noise limiting the transmission of high numbers of bits per second when the cable is more than 15m long. This means that the transmitting and receiving lines