Failed Parallel Port on system, Recommended Easiest Upgrade Solution ?

Parrallel port has failed on my old computer , running Ubuntu 10.4 and EMC2 2.4.6 . Milling machine has Pico USC , Microkinetics Steppers , Linear Scales for Position feedback.  Old computer is a mishmash of crap that has no network capabilities.
I need the easiest upgrade path , for a computer and Software . Im old and not very tech savy!  I may go to a Mesa board if it would make things easier. Any and all recommendations!

The below is what I use for testing and messing around with Linuxcnc. I'm a little biased towards Lenvo, I have a couple of ThinkPads, 2 ThinkCentres and a ThinkStation. Never had an issue, my T530 ThinkPad is my daily driver.
Lenovo M73 Tower with a i5 CPU (avoid the SFF models)

You'll need a parallel motherboard port cable (otherwise you can't enable the PP in the BIOS) www.ebay.com/itm/256520010767

A small SSD is not a bad idea as well 128GB is enough.

You wont need to do much to your configs, except the small diffs from 2.7 to 2.9.

I did find a USB Stick with a full back up set of files. I know the hardware must be fine , I transplanted the computer from the other mill. It would make the steppers at least jump. The computer would not even boot from the ISO so I could reload the OS.

Ive done exactly that , Bios was set accurately , but it still would not boot from the USB Stick. I also must not have root access. The Bios doesnt show a password installed ., but if i use SUDO in the terminal , it asks for my password ?

BIOS password and sudo\root password are unrelated.

The sudo password will be the password of the user you are logged in as.

Just to make sure, the ISO file just hasnt been copied to the USB stick ?
What size USB stick are you using ? I've seen some older machines that have trouble with larger modern USB sticks. I'd try and dig up a 2gb or 4gb USB stick, just in case.
Also some BIOSes, older ones again, have a selection where the USB stick can be selected as a CD-ROM, HDD or floppy drive, if this is the case you may have to play around with this.

Also it would be helpful if you could identify the computer, this info should be available in the BIOS. Some machines\motherboards have quirks that can increase the difficulty level to get simple tasks done. The more info the better we can help.

I used RUFUS to create the ISO , its an older 2Gb stick. The motherboard is an Intel D510 , Intel Atom 1.66ghz , 64bit.

To tell the truth I'm not a big fan of Rufus, it tries to be too smart by far.
When I had to create bootable USB stick via windows I always used win32diskimager.org/

Or if using Linuxdoes the job fine, askubuntu.com/questions/1333102/what-is-...-hard-drive-over-usb