Like I said, you can buy a Gecko G100 and Mach4 in a few months, or by DeskCNC (software AND hardware) right now. Or Flashcut. That's 3 that are already available. And I think you'll be able to buy Parallel port cards for a few years still. There are also millions of PC's with parallel ports that you'll be able to buy for less than $100.
If you insist on building your own hardware, most likely you'll need someone to write a complete control software to run it. That would take thousands of hours. Mach3 is $150.
