On 10/29/2016 01:12 AM, Maciej S. Szmigiero wrote:

quoted

Would you mind sharing the laptop's model?

This is Elitebook model 8570p.

That seems like a fairly recent laptop:

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-HP-EliteBook-8570p-B6Q03EA-ABD-Notebook.82291.0.html

and it has a true parallel port? Thanks a lot for the pointer!

quoted

There are a bunch of
Elitebooks and maybe not all have the ports wired.
Does your laptop has the Parallel Port on the docking or on the laptop
itself?

Only a serial port socket is built-it, parallel port socket is
available only via a port replicator.

According to description of this replicator it is compatible with
a lot of different Elitebooks and Probooks:
http://h30094.www3.hp.com/product.aspx?sku=10432928&mfg_part=A7E34AA&pagemode=ca

I wasn't able find any note in this replicator description that port
availability depends on connected laptop model.
You can try to search for particular laptop model schematics, even
if it is available only for sale sometimes there is a preview
page with block diagram which clearly show where the parallel port
is connected (this is true for my laptop model for example).

However, whether the port is on standard I/O address and interrupt
line requires some more digging.

Thanks for the information.

quoted

Do you know the command to enable them thru PnP? Shouldn't loading
the kernel module be enough? Or is it the other way around and 
enabling thru PnP triggers the kernel module load process?

If you want to use them under Linux then everything should be taken
care of by kernel's PnP support.
It can be problem if you want to use them under pure DOS.

I see, thanks.