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« on: December 30, 2010, 11:56:35 AM »
You dont actually need a breakout board but I prefer to use on mainly for the ease of connecting but they also usually afford a little protection if they are isolated and a further benefit when using the parallel port is that most can accept the 3.3v signals some modern ports put out and will boost it to 5v for your drives.
Cost wise they go from cheap to expensive, my personal preference is the PMDX122 which will be around $80 but there are cheaper ones from other makesrs and also dearer ones, for six axis and the I/O you would need 2, if wanting breakouts for each port. There are also dual breakouts, I think PMDX do some and as said there are others that make boards.
PCI parallel port I am not sure, in the UK you would be talking £10 to £20 so it would probably be the same in $ for you.
Hood