Hi. I finished my homebuilt cnc machine awhile back and have been using Mach 3 on a regular desktop PC with a parallel port, but  I would like to hook it up to my new Dell Laptop i'm buying. The only problem is it doesn't have a parallel port. I'm also using the 3 axis cnc pro driver board from Hobby CNC. Is there any way to use a usb port or would a expansion docking port work ( This uses the laptop's usb port and then has a parallel port, serial,etc.) Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

You cannot use any form of USB to parallel adapter. Mach demands total control over the timing of pulses on the parallel port and will not work through a USB interface. If you could find a PCMCIA card to parallel port that might work, but Im not sure they are available.

The only way to use a laptop without a parallel port is to use a device like the ncPod or G100