EMC questions

I finally got emc installed on a computer to play with. It was the
bdi_emc v2.20 cd. It took about 4 tries to get the right hardware
combo. Ended up with a 450mhz pentium II with a 440 chipset and a s3
video card. I have it installed and have been playing with the
emc_sim Icon on the desktop.
here are a few questions.

I am new with linux and emc. What are some good beginers sources for
info on it. The install/setup instructions are a little vauge.

I am going to run stepping motors with emc.
This little snippet is from the install/setup instructions.

"Stepper motor control is implemented using a second real-time task
that runs at 100 microseconds. This task writes the parallel port
output with bits set or cleared based on whether the a pulse should
be raised or lowered. This gives an effective period of 200
microseconds for a full up-and-down pulse, or a 5 kilohertz
frequency."

If I calculate that right I can only have a max speed of 30ipm with a
resolution of .0001/step. Am I correct with this. Is there any other
solutions?

What about an external step generator? How does that work.

What I would really like to find is step by step instruction on how
someone set up there steppers with emc. How the ini files work and
how to run different ini files.


thanks
sam