This is an old problem with a lot of folklore and few answers. I have faced it again with a new computer (and my subscription has run out so I can't call support!).
Quatech PCMCIA parallel port works, but StarTech CB1PECP PCMCIA adapter using Oxford OX16PCI95x chip does not. Dell D400 in docking station works. Sunix PCI card parallel port in desktop machine does not work. All motherboard parallel ports seem to work and no USB attached parallel adapters that I know of will work.
Those that work are set to LPT1, to Never us an interrupt, and Enable legacy PnP detection not required.
What seems to be common in ones that work is the I/O address is the old default starting at 0378. The add-on parallel ports either don't show their I/O address in device manager (e.g. Sunix PCI card) or it is not configurable and not standard (e.g. StarTech/Oxford starts at FFD8).
Does any one know - is it simply that the ByteBlaster xx driver needs to see the device at the legacy I/O address? Then instead of wasting money on trying different parallel adapters we could know which ones will work. And if so would it not be a small fix to make the Altera driver support different parallel port cards? Other folks devices do (e.g. Texas Instruments MSP430 programmer/emulator works happly on add-on parallel ports I have tried, and a few other parallel programmers do, too).