This section will briefly outline some of the basic electrical operating characteristics of a PC parallel port. More detail can be found in the IBM Parallel Port FAQ, written by Zhahai Stewart, or the PC Parallel Port Mini-FAQ by Kris Heidenstrom. Those documents have a lot of detail about registers, bit numbers, and inverted logic--those topics won't be discussed here, because the entire point of Parapin is to let programmers control the port without knowing those gory details.
The PC parallel port usually consists of 25 pins in a DB-25 connector. These pins can interface to the TTL logic of an external device, either as inputs or outputs. Some pins can be used as inputs only, while some can be switched in software, on-the-fly, between input mode and output mode. Note, however, that it can be dangerous for two devices to assert an output value on the same line at the same time. Devices that are using bidirectional pins must agree (somehow) on who is supposed to control the line at any given time.
From the point of view of Parapin, the pinout of the parallel port is as follows:
| Pin | Direction |
| 1 | In/Out |
| 2-9 | In/Out (see note) |
| 10 | Input, Interrupt Generator |
| 11 | Input |
| 12 | Input |
| 13 | Input |
| 14 | In/Out |
| 15 | Input |
| 16 | In/Out |
| 17 | In/Out |
| 18-25 | Ground |
Pins 2-9--called the parallel port's ``Data Pins''--are ganged. That is, their directions are not individually controllable; they must be either all inputs or all outputs. (The actual values of the pins--on or off--are individually controllable.) Also, some of the oldest parallel ports do not support switching between inputs and outputs on pins 2-9 at all, so pins 2-9 are always outputs. Many PC motherboards allow the user to select the personality of the parallel port in the BIOS. If you need to use pins 2-9 as bidirectional or input pins, make sure your port is configured as a ``PS/2'' port or one of the other advanced port types; ports in SPP (Standard Parallel Port) mode may not support direction switching on pins 2-9.
Pin 10 is special because it can generate interrupts. Interrupt handling is discussed in more detail in Section 9.
Output pins can assert either a TTL high value (between +2.4v and +5.0v), or a TTL low (between 0v and +0.8v). The port can not source much current. Specs for different implementations vary somewhat, but a safe assumption (staying within spec) is that the voltage will be at least 2.5v when drawing up to 2.5mA. In reality you can sometimes get away with using an output pin to power a component that uses 3v or even 5v logic, but the supplied voltage may sag if more than 2.5mA is drawn. Input pins are typically spec'ed to be able to sink up to about 20mA. For a more detailed treatment of the parallel port electronics, see the references above.