No, actually, blame the VAST MAJORITY of USERS who don't (and shouldn't have to) understand the intricacies of choosing an I/O base address, or the differences between ECP and EPP. Centronics? Who remembers them? RS-232? Is that a Radio Shack cable?

These average USERS don't know why there's a difference between a "parallel" port and a "serial" port, nor do they care. They just wonder why there are different ports in the first place! The user didn't want to understand SCSI and its addresses and termination arcana, so it's gone. The average user is often confused by Ethernet configuration, hence DHCP.

Remember: you are an engineer. You are NOT the average user! The average user (and even some engineers, like myself) likes the simplicity of a USB or FireWire connection to any arbitrary peripheral. (OK, some users wonder why we have both FireWire AND USB, but I digress.) Any USB cable can be used with any USB device. No need to sort out whether your serial cable is straight-through, crossover, null modem, etc.

And also remember: anything that's simple for the user often requires complex engineering. Engineers should be happy about that ...

Most USERS don't need old-skool serial and parallel ports. Those who need them can still buy PCI cards or USB dongles that provide them.

-a

(NB: the USB-to-Parallel adapters are more strictly PCI-to-Centronics-Printer adapters; you can't use them to bit-bang like a "real" parallel port.)