Paralell port pins and stuff

Ok this might be more for modding than anything else... but its more relevant to Harware I thought.

Anyway... So I'm going to make a LCD screen thing for my server, and I want to make it so you can plug it in extermally OR mount it in a drive bay. My question is...

Can you get any power from paralell ports? If not, can I get the same 12V rail from a USB cable that I would from using a molex adaptor? Or, even better, would it be easy to make a USB lcd screen... and would I be able to use the normal LCD screen controller programs with it? Or am I better off making a power socket from a molex adaptor so I can plug it in outside the case? OR would I be able to bodge a USB cable to get power off it and the OS wouldnt get errors trying to recognise it?

Thanks

 

AFAIK, serial and parallel ports provide only minimal power. Enough to power a keyboard or mouse and that's it.

As for the USB solution, I own a set of cheapy speakers that are powered by the USB connection. There's still an audio jack for the sound card, and Windows never knows that there's a USB device plugged in at all.

But I have no idea how that's all done. /me is in CS/IT, not EE.

 

Ah... so it is possible to do that. Handy. I doubt you'd be able to run a backlit LCD screen off paralell. Now I just need to work out HOW do wire a usb cable (or perhaps from a USB header to make things easier?) No, thats stupid, if i use a usb header that would kinda defeat the point wouldnt it lol.

I now wonder if i have a paralell header inside my machine. I'm guessing not as its primariliy used for printers and the such.