Direct cable connection to a standard serial cable) must be used to connect each of the two computers to communicate properly. Such connection uses PPP protocol. If the parallel ports are used, Windows supports standard or basic 4-bit cable (commonly known as LapLink cable), Enhanced Capabilities Port (ECP) cable, or Universal Cable Module (UCM) cable (which was known as DirectParallel cable by Parallel Technologies). Infrared communication ports, like the ones found on laptop computers (such as IrDA), can also be used. Connecting any two computers using USB requires a special proprietary bridge cable. A directly connected pin-to-pin USB type A cable does not
Parallel port logical parallel port.) The base address 0x3BC is typically supported by printer ports on MDA and Hercules display adapters, whereas printer ports provided by the mainboard chipset or add-on cards rarely allow to be configured to this base address. Therefore, in absence of a monochrome display adapter, a common assignment for the first logical parallel port (and therefore also for the corresponding LPT1 DOS device driver) today is 0x378, even though the default is still 0x3BC (and would be selected by the BIOS if it detects a printer port at this address). The IRQ lines are typically configurable in the