Parallel port the ports in this manner in many cases, though this is often fairly hidden. In SCO UNIX and Linux, the first parallel port is available via the filesystem as /dev/lp0. Linux IDE devices can use a "paride" (parallel port IDE) driver. For consumers, USB and computer networks have replaced the parallel printer port, for connections both to printers and to other devices. Many manufacturers of personal computers and laptops consider parallel to be a legacy port and no longer include the parallel interface. Smaller machines have less room for large parallel port connectors. USB-to-parallel adapters are available that can make
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