On 13 Mar 98 at 20:51, Roxanne Pierce wrote:

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

  3BC has never been the conventional address for anything but the
parallel port on a monochrome (TTL) video card.

> On Friday, March 13, 1998 00:11, [log in to unmask] [SMTP:[log in to unmask]] wrote:
> >
> >         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".

  However, Javier is correct; the BIOS, right from the earliest PC
days, has been set to detect and enumerate a parallel port at that
address ahead of any additional ports installed at addresses 378 and
278 (respectively).
  Monochrome cards have been uncommon for a decade now, and it has
become both useful and common for makers of other devices which
include parallel ports to support configuration at the 3BC address.
It's important for people doing system configuration (which might
not include all users) to be aware that if a device is configured for
3BC, the BIOS will enumerate it as the first parallel port --
regardless of what any particular manufacturer nominates as the
default address for their device.

David G