On Oct 18, 2006, at 1:00 AM, Paul Williams wrote:
I am developing some educational software that uses a sensor that plugs into the parallel port. I need to be able to read and set the state of the i/o pins on that port. I have tried using read/write to file lpt1 without any success, can anyone point in the right direction with a snippet of code?
If the sensor needs arbitrary wiggling or reading of the handshake lines, then you will need a special driver. There are a few out there, but most would need an external wrapper. Long ago I saw a driver that converted LPT bit twiddling and sensing to something that was virtually a serial driver. That should work great. Look for parallel port drivers online.
If you just need the 8 output I/O lines and the sensor provides the handshake (or at least ties busy and paper error to the ground) you should be able to open that and at minimum write to it. I'm pretty sure I have in the distant past. I forgot the name to use. Try "lpt:", "lpt1:", "\\.\lpt", and "\\.\lpt1" and the like. You might have to use the BIOS to set the mode for the device. Sometimes you have to set the mode to classic and that will limit you to output only.
If that does not work try something like shell("type fileWithMyByte > lpt") for output only.
If you bought the sensor, the manufacturer might have much better info or hobby groups might.
You will want to get parallel port monitor software or a parallel port utility to confirm what you are doing and to check out the sensor directly. Look for those online, too.
You might want to get some hardware to monitor the lines. The serial line gadgets will probably not work.
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