Isn't it a serial port? In that case, you need a USB-serial adapter, such as the highly recommended Keyspan 19HS, and in Max, just use the [serial] object. Check the related Max tutorial, and check the doc of your EEG machine, you should manage to talk to it, and receive info from it.

Thanks Jean-Francois, actually my EEG technician tells me that they still use the parallel port since it is the most reliable one in terms of millisecond timing. No ideas about any way to do it?

I've not used one myself, but I do now that bidirectional USB-Parallel cables exist. There may be some way to use one of those with the [serial] object, although I have no idea how direct access to the pins would work. If the cable itself doesn't do it, there should be some method using some hardware hacking to build a serial to parallel interface that would do what you need.

Hi USB to Parrallel -http://www.cwol.com/usb/usb-parallel-printer-adapter-uc-6c.htm Cheers