just to let you know that I have now solved this. In case someone else has this problem
If the address of your parallel port is not in the drop-down menu, you can add it in the preferences (File => Preferences => Hardware)
the next problem I encountered was that Psychopy complained about a missing parallel port driver. This can be fixed by installing one from the source mentioned in the thread below
Nice to have solved something at the end of a long day
