Parallel port programming on windows XP / 2000

[ex at pe.rl]

Thank you... I finally got around to installing a proper newsreader,
so that not every single one of my posts is a new thread.

I know what I did wrong now.

First, the line in the requirements about ""Java Communications"
(JavaComm) extension for Java/Jython" seriously threw me off.

Second, I somehow missed giveio_setup.exe. I did have giveio.sys, but
I guess it wasn't installed or at least not properly.

Anyway, now everything works... except of course the new thing that
doesn't, but at least it has nothing to do with the parallel port
itself. Interestingly enough, it's the 95/98 port that fails now, and
the XP/2000 that works. 

The new problem may be something you're familiar with - the resolution
of time.sleep(). On XP/2000 it's a millisecond, which is just about
good enough; on 95/98 it's ten millisecond.

I'll probably need to do something like run through a loop for a
second or two, see how many iterations I can complete, then keep that
as the basis for timing. Not really elegant, but I can't see a better
way around it.