rkrig,
I've been selling these JR cables (both parallel and, even better, serial) for long time. I've had more than hundred happy customer as well as several people, who returned the cables for a refund.

Before suggesting somebody else's cables (I know, you were trying to help--no offence intended), may be it's a good idea to check the quality of those cables? The pictures at the link, you've provided, show unshielded cables--how good can they be in the noisy PC environment?

But I'm not talking about this! RCUniverse forums is not an appropriate place for advertisement (aren't we sick of all this ads?), so, I'm abstaining for advertizing either myself or anybody else. I've just tried to help a guy to find info and make cable without paying to anybody (including myself).

Sorry for starting another flame tread,
Boris