Re: [patch #7275] Support for parallel port programmers on windows 7 64 bit and other versions of 64 bit windows

[Joerg Wunsch]

As Marius Greuel wrote:

> IMHO, we should drop support for parallel ports. I just cannot imagine
> anyone still using parallel ports for AVR programming.

As long as it's working, I wouldn't really want to drop it. We abstracted
the "logical" layer from the physical one long time ago, and thus the
logical layer is being re-used above other physical layers as well.

What appears to be reasonable though is to turn the --enable-parport
configure default from "yes" to "no", so only those who really want to
use the feature get it (similar to linuxgpio and linuxspi).

> I wouldn't object so much against using parallel ports if it would not
> require a custom driver on Windows.

Blame Microsoft for it. All other operating systems (Linux, *BSD,
Solaris) offer(ed) a generic parport access driver where the user
didn't have to hack the OS for (they only needed to take care about
access permissions).

Same with USB: all the non-Windows systems offer access to a lowlevel
driver layer that can be used without any further configuration
(again, except for access permissions) even if there is no other
device-specific driver installed. If there are device-specific drivers
(e.g. for FTDI), an application can either access that one or the
generic one below, without any admin interaction, additional driver
selection and so on. Only on Windows, you need hacks like Zadig in
order to assign a device explicitly to libusb or other drivers.

-- 
cheers, Joerg               .-.-.   --... ...--   -.. .  DL8DTL

http://www.sax.de/~joerg/
Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for. ;-)