Hey,
If you want to do something simple, you can use your parallel port to control other circuitry.
I've made an extension module before for DLPortIO which is a free lib for doing port IO in win2k/xp.
I have to dig it out of my hdds/discs if you want it, but it's really easy to make with pyrex anyway.
Avi. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list