All the Pentium or PII motherboards I have bought here in the U.S. in the last
couple of years come with 378 configured in the system CMOS setup as the
default I/O for LPT1. (I've bought lots.)

I think that what was once conventional has changed.  I am not disputing the
order that the BIOS does its checking, and I know that 3BC is a perfectly
acceptable I/O for LPT1.  It is offered as an option on the better motherboards
I use.

But 3BC is absolutely not the default conventional I/O address (here in the US)
anymore. 378 is.

Roxanne Pierce
R2 Systems, San Diego
mailto:[log in to unmask]

On Friday, March 13, 1998 00:11, [log in to unmask] [SMTP:[log in to unmask]] wrote:
> > True, the standards for "first" printer port has 3BC+, but the standard for
> > LPT1 is 378+.
> > >
> > Doug Simmons
>
>         Believe me, it is not quite this way: if you have lpt ports 3BC+ and
> 378+, they will be LPT1 and LPT2. There is no "standard 378+ for LPT1".
>         What happens is that the bios, while checking hardware, scans for
> lpt ports at 3BC, 378 and 278 IN THAT ORDER. (So it may happen that if you
> have only 278+ it will be LPT1 for the operating system later!) The results
> of the scan are left in addresses 0040:0008+. In that sense, LPT1=3BC+,
> LPT2=378+ and LPT3=278+ is an absolute hardware convention.
<snip>