LapLink Cable: Direct cable connection, Parallel port, Network interface card, Modem, Laplink, List of DOS commands

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. A LapLink cable is a cable that allows one to connect two computers together to establish a direct cable connection. The connection is achieved via the parallel ports on the two computers. No networking hardware such as a network interface card or a modem are required. The cable is named after the Laplink software package, which was designed to make such a connection possible. It can be used by the InterSvr program in MS-DOS 6, and by Linux. The term "Laplink" is a registered trademark used by Laplink Software Inc. A LapLink cable can be seen as a parallel equivalent to a serial null modem cable. Because of the higher bandwidth of the parallel port versus the serial port, a LapLink cable is able to shift data more quickly at the same clock speed, which was important at the time it was developed, since clock speeds then were relatively slow. This is still the reason it is used as a means to install Linux to machines without a CD-ROM/DVD station or Ethernet port built-in. And can also be used as an failover link between ha-cluster nodes.