About 15 yrs ago I built a small CNC it used a parallel port and I ran Mach.

8 yrs ago I bought a Thermwood 45 - 5' X 10' bed.  Since then I haven't used my home made machine.  I now want to re purpose it. 

Can I run mach3 from my laptop with no parallel port?  If so how?

Thanks

With an external motion device, like a Smoothstepper.

My first question and I'm sure I know what the answer is going to be.  NO  A USB to parallel adaptor won't work?

Second - It looks like this replaces the old board that the drives are wired to.  So I just need to connect existing steppers?

Thanks

No, the adapter won't work.

Actually, the breakout board that you had plugged into the parallel port should just plug directly into the smoothstepper.

So the smoothstepper plugs to the computer via USB - The smooth stepper to existing board via parallel cable? Sorry if I'm slow in getting this.

Correct. however, the Ethernet version of the Smoothstepper is preferred over the USB version. It's far more immune to noise issues.

You will however need to make sure you get a parallel to IDC adapter so that you can plug direct.
Hood

Thanks to all. This will make a very inexpensive solution. 

I'm making a auto positioning stop for my chop saw.  To buy one is 15K - I'll have less than $400 in it.