jam jtag parallel port
Basically, most FPGA manufacturers have specific JTAG connector mapping and also incompatible signal usage with simple parallel port adapters. I know particularly Altera, Xilinx and Lattice, different each. However, some manufacturer tools have options to use a competitors JTAG adapter, if think this is the case with Lattice ispVM programming tool and also with Altera JAM player. I would expect the compatibility issues to continue with USB adapters. If I remember right, there have been efforts to achieve multi protocol capability with USB adapter projects in EDAboard.