ISA or PCI P/Port

[WTAP]

I have a scanner with a pass through printer cable and would like to add another parallel port to separate the two.Which would be a better card ISA or PCI? I have one slot left.

[Pantion]

ISA card should be cheapper, but will take more CPU and slowdown the computer a lot.

PCI is a bit expensive, but it will shout better performance and less CPU use.

Since you are only going to scan, well maybe it would be a matter of cash and I would go for an ISA and leave the PCI for another card that really requieres it.

[KillerBug]

sounds like he has that one shared spot open, am I right? I like PCI for everything, go for PCI, but if it is more than $10 more, then go with the ISA.

[Roy]

Why do you want to separate them? I use the pass-through without difficulty. The BIOS must be set for ECP&EPP for both to work.

If you get a separate port card, make sure it supports the protocol required by the device (ECP and/or EPP).

[KillerBug]

I had to seperate my scanner from my printer, And I still have to share a cable with my storstation, but here are a few scenarios...

You are printing and you decide you want to back up a file on an extrernal drive. You are printing, and you find a picture in a mag, 1 parallel port means you cannot scan, you turn on your printer, press print, and nothing happens, your scanner is off, etc...