Use parallelport and mesa card together

Hello everyone,

i am planning a cnc 3 axis milling machine. I want to use mesa cards to control steppers, encoders, endstops etc. . My control PC is an old one with parallelport. My plan is to use the parallelport to connect a encoder jog wheel (encoder), cycle start, cycle stop, and e-stop. (parallelport has 5 inputs right?)
The PC sits in the contro lpanel housing. It would be nice to not have to run wires from the mesacard, out the electronics-enclosure, into the control panel again.
I didnt find anything on this topic, maybe because its stupid?
Is it possible? If yes, is it a good idea?

Thanks in advance.

Greetings from germany!

Parallel port and Mesa 6i25/7i77 on the same machine and same PC, running without a hitch for nearly 6 years:
forum.linuxcnc.org/show-your-stuff/34986...nuxcnc-and-proma-thc
So yes it is possible and it does work reliably.
-
Built in parallel ports can do:
-Mode OUT = 12 outputs and 5 inputs
-Mode IN = 13 inputs and 4 outputs
-Mode X = 8 outputs and 9 inputs
Very easy to set in LinuxCNC by editing the hal file.
M.F.G.