Hi!

I have a Compaq Presario 433 all-in-one machine with a 486DX2 CPU.

I think it's a really cool looking machine which is why I've decided to work around its limitations — namely, a lack of CD-ROM. For that purpose I've found an external LPT Backpack drive — only to learn that there is actually a bunch of LPT standards with varying bandwidth and my Compaq seems to have the slowest one. That makes it nearly impossible to play any game that relies on having a 2x drive or higher (The Dig, Full Throttle).

So, long story short, I need an LPT controller or a multi I/O that has EPP/ECP-capable port. That turned out to be quite challenging:

- shipping controllers from European and American eBay vendors to Russia costs a lot.
- no local vendor I've come across knows whether his cards supports EPP/ECP.
- before you mention SCSI drivers — the only one I've managed to find so far was expensive and actually slow (3x, if my memory serves me).

Some people here suggested I just find any multi I/O with LPT jumpers. I did just that (namely, a Goldstar Prime 2-based card), but it turned out to only have SPP. So, having jumpers doesn't mean the card has EPP/ECP.

Today I've found a vendor with several multi I/Os. Here is the photo of all the cards (there are some modems, SCSI controllers and BNC LAN cards, too):

Questions:

1) the MP452 card mentions only Centonics parallel port with a bi-directional mode switch. Does that mean it's only good for 200 KB/S (as per here)? Seems to me that Cetronics is an earlier version of LPT that only later became standard IEE1284 LPT, so could it be that bi-directional is actually EPP?
2) what is the brown-colored sound card with Yamaha chips on the first picture?

Thanks!