Since the first try with the on board parallel port failed because it was a 3.3V model, I ordered a new card from Newegg. The new card is a PCI card with one parallel port and two serial ports. Installing it under Ubuntu Linux was pretty easy. I just plugged it in and the serial ports were immediately recognized. The parallel port was recognized as well, but did not show up in any of the queries.
Challenging the status quo and empowering engineers
After years of piling up and hording seemingly useful junk we have finally collected the right pieces of junk to make something useful. The goal is to assemble the pieces we have into a 3 axis engraver to cut metal business cards. Since the budget for this project is very low, most of the parts are from scrap. The controller is open source and from LinuxCNC and runs on a PC loaded with Ubuntu Linux. The drives and motors are all steppers. The spindle is yet to be determined, but will probably be a Dremel mounted to the Z axis.
