Re: Parallel Port Interface cards

There is a principle that people used to follow that signal cables
have male connectors and equipment has female connectors. That makes
all of your cables male to male. The theory behind that was that male
connectors are more susceptable to damage - you can knock them
together with something solid and the shell deforms or worse a bunch
of pins fold over. If that happens to a cable you just replace it but
if it happens to a male connector on a piece of equipment it is
usually more expensive to repair and has the potential to damage the
internal circuitry. Of course the IBM PC blew that up when they put
male connectors on the serial ports.

Things like parallel port dongles can't follow this convention, of
course, although I've seen them mounted inside the computer case with
the female connector in the place where the parallel port connector
usually is, but that was done for security.

Chris