Parallel communication modern computers. Before the development of high-speed serial technologies, the choice of parallel links over serial links was driven by these factors: The decreasing cost and better performance of integrated circuits has led to serial links being used in favor of parallel links; for example, IEEE 1284 printer ports vs. USB, Parallel ATA vs. Serial ATA, and FireWire or Thunderbolt are now the most common connectors for transferring data from AV(audiovisual) devices such as digital cameras or professional-grade scanners that used to require purchasing a SCSI HBA years ago. One huge advantage of having fewer wires/pins in a serial cable
Parallel port later than Windows 95/98 prevent user programs from directly writing to or reading from the LPT without additional software (kernel extensions). Current CNC Milling Machines also often make use of the parallel port to directly control the machine's motors and attachments. Traditionally IBM PC systems have allocated their first three parallel ports according to the configuration in the table below (if all three printer ports exist). If there is an unused slot, the port addresses of the others are moved up. (For example, if a port at 0x3BC does not exist, the port at 0x378 will then become the first