Best FOSS alternative for skype?

[Tim]

Tim:
>> It'd been my observation that most parallel ports were very
>> non-standard.  There were different modes of operation, and many were
>> only suitable for connecting a printer (they were an output, only).

J.Witvliet:
> Most paralel ports on those vintage machines were capable of both rx
> and tx Allthough they could not transfer 8-bits wide.

Typically, by using the handshaking lines as inputs, rather than the
data lines as inputs and outputs, like they should do...

Which lead to strange uses and special hardware being the only way to
use them as a parallel I/O port.

Even for use with a printer, you found you had to fiddle around with
BIOS, or other configuration controls, to be able to use some parallel
printers, properly, with your computer.

In this situation, at least the Amiga did let you use the port as a
proper parallel port.  'were the PCs of the day playing annoying games
with hobbled ports.

I just wish modern computer designers could learn from the mistakes of
the past, and not make them again.  e.g. Crappy proprietary connectors
on old equipment, and copying the mistakes with finicky and fragile
connectors on new equipment (miniature firewire ports, dubious plastic
SATA ports, etc.).

-- 
[tim at localhost ~]$ uname -r
2.6.27.25-78.2.56.fc9.i686

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