[wellylug] Remote control via printer port

[pmilne]

Can someone please point me in the right direction for a means of 
scanning and driving the printer port at a 'low level' under Linux.

One reference I had for this was to use an early version of DOS and 
QBASIC (heaven forbid!), and I could do this on an ancient 286 laptop I 
hauled out of the closet the other day (a thick old Compaq with 
removable keyboard).

Linux use I have in mind could either be a full modern distro, or a CD 
with some stripped down version - command line use would be quite OK.

Thanks
Peter