Adaptec APA-358 Installation Guide - Page 3

s APA-358 MiniSCSI EPP Installation Guide s Software User Guide s Product Registration card s Microsoft® MSCDEX Registration card If anything is missing, please contact your dealer. 2 What is EPP? This section gives you a brief overview of the Enhanced Parallel Port (EPP) design and how the adapter functions to incorporate the increased performance of EPP. EPP is a major breakthrough in enhancing parallel port performance. Current parallel ports achieve data transfer rates of between 50 and 260 KBytes/ sec, but the EPP reaches up to 1 MBytes/sec. How is this achieved? Current device drivers for parallel port peripherals require several instructions to be executed for each byte of data transferred. With EPP, each byte requires a single I/O instruction, substantially reducing overhead per byte. These features, plus improved hardware design, significantly improve the performance of parallel-connected peripherals. There is no need to specify whether an EPP device is being connected-faster EPP transmission rates are automatic. When not running in EPP mode, the port operates at standard parallel rates, providing compatibility between EPP and non-EPP parallel ports and peripherals. With the new MiniSCSI EPP, you can take advantage of this new EPP technology and achieve the best performance for your peripherals. The adapter provides easy connection of peripherals and is roughly as fast as a conventional 8-bit ISA-bus SCSI adapter. The MiniSCSI EPP is also backward compatible with non-EPP unidirectional and bidirectional parallel ports. Simply connect the adapter to your parallel port, and it detects which port you have. 2