Why no more parallel ports on Dell desktops
It is an unfortunate (and unnecessary, IMO) trend in the industry, and it extends to RS232 serial ports as well.
With the various chipsets available today, and the pre-buttembled connector arrays available to motherboard makers, it costs practically nothing to continue to place serial and parallel ports in PC's. I see the industry's trend away from such as merely another way to force people into spending more money to "upgrade" their printers, as you've already found out.
For my part: I will not buy any laptop, or desktop motherboard, that does not have at least one standard serial and parallel port.
Kevin,=20 Does your bank's checking acct, offer online bill paying? That is the = way that I do it, to pay my Dell Preferred Credit bill...
My advice would be to build your own system from scratch. That way, you can hunt up a decent motherboard (I'm a big fan of Tyan) that still has S & P ports.
Happy hunting.
-- Dr. Anton T. Squeegee, Director, Dutch Surrealist Plumbing Insbreastute. (Known to some as Bruce Lane, ARS KC7GR, kyrrin (a-t) bluefeathertechd=o=tcalm -- www.bluefeathertech.com "If Salvador Dali had owned a computer, would it have been equipped with surreal ports?"