More books in category: Computer Interfacing
by: Jan Axelson
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Topics include: timeout bit, read the status port, used data bit, peripheral brings, extended control register, parallel port registers, peripheral responds, device aaa, parallel port signals, form that enables users, original parallel port, logic high output, peripheral reads, logic high input, provide handshaking, access the parallel port, testing ports, requested bit, octal buffer, handshaking signals, digital thermostat, peripheral must, newer ports, initialization data, configuration registers
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Editorial Reviews Nuts and Volts, Joseph Carr, It's been awhile since I've seen a book as practical as this one. Parallel Port Complete is a real keeper! Personal Engineering and Instrumentation News, Paul Schreier, May 1997 An excellent resource for Visual Basic programmers looking to interface hardware through standard ports. Anyone designing hardware to work with a parallel port is well advised to add this book to their library. Electronics Now, Jeff Holtzman If you want to learn about PC-based parallel ports, then you need a copy of Jan Axelson's Parallel Port Complete. Good stuff. Windows Developer's Journal The book is written in a very readable style and starts off with the basics; you don't have to be a hardware guru to read it. If you think you might ever need to access a parallel port (under any operating system), this book is for you. Bill Machrone, PC Week If you need to do any development of parallel port devices or want to get a bit-level understanding of the port's inner workings, I strongly recommend Parallel Port Complete.
Book Description A guide to programming, interfacing, and using the personal computer's parallel printer port. Includes circuit designs and Visual-Basic code examples, plus tips on how to get the most out of the port, including the enhanced (EPP) and extended-capabilities (ECP) ports found on most new systems. Includes disk. Download Description This detailed guide for programmers, developers, and computer enthusiasts shows how to get the most from parallel port in any application or project. The Visual-Basic code and circuit designs include examples that use the new enhanced (EPP) and expanded (EPC) modes. --This text refers to the Digital edition. Excerpted from Parallel Port Complete by Jan Axelson, Janet Louise Axelson. Copyright © 1997. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved From Chapter 11, Modes for Data Transfer: Detecting an ECP In testing a port, you might think that the first step would be to test for an SPP, and work your way up from there. But if the port is an ECP, and it happens to be in its internal SPP mode, the port will fail the PS/2 (bidirectional) test. For this reason, the TestPort routine in Listing 4-4 begins by testing for an ECP. An ECP has several additional registers. One of these, the extended control register (ECR) at base address + 402h, is useful in detecting an ECP. Microsoft's ECP document recommends a test for detecting an ECP. First, read the port's ECR at and verify that bit 0 (FIFO empty) =1 and bit 1 (FIFO full) =0. These bits should be distinct from bits 0 and 1 in the port's Control register (at base address + 2). You can verify this by toggling one of the bits in the Control register, and verifying that the corresponding bit in the ECR doesn't change. A further test is to write 34h to the ECR and read it back. Bits 0 and 1 in the ECR are read-only, so if you read 35h, you almost certainly have an ECP. If an ECP exists, you can read and set the port's internal ECP mode in bits 5, 6, and 7 of the ECR. In Listing 4-4, a combo box enables users to select an ECP mode when a port is ECP. Chapter 15 has more on reading, setting, and using the ECP's modes. From Chapter 7, Output Applications: Solid-state Relays Another way to switch power to a load is to use a solid-state relay, which offers an easy-to-use, optoisolated switch in a single package. Figure 7-7A shows an example. In a typical solid-state DC relay, applying a voltage across the control inputs causes current to flow in an LED enclosed in the package. The LED switches on a photodiode, which applies a control voltage to a MOSFET's gate, switching the MOSFET on. The result is a low resistance across the switch terminals, which effectively closes the switch and allows current to flow. Removing the control voltage turns off the LED and opens the switch. Solid-state relays are rated for use with a variety of load voltages and currents. Because the switch is optoisolated, there need be no electrical connection at all between the control signal and the circuits being switched. Solid-state relays have an on resistance of anywhere from a few ohms to several hundred ohms. Types rated for higher voltages tend to have higher on resistances. Solid-state relays also have small leakage currents, typically a microampere or so, that flow through the switch even when off. This leakage current isn't a problem in most applications. There are solid-state relays for switching AC loads as well. These provide a simple and safe way to use a logic signal to switch line voltage to a load. Inside the relay, the switch itself is usually an SCR or TRIAC. Zero-voltage switches minimize noise by switching only when the AC voltage is near zero.
The Title says it All: I cannot recommend this book highly enough for the home gageteer. The author Jan Axelson is a rare example of someone that knows her stuff, explains it well to novices, and provides excellent generic examples of code. The examples provided cover situations such as; exporting data bits out thru the parallel port, reading info from the data port, searching for data ports and addresses, and using the parallel port to communicate pc to pc. Seldom do you find a "can-do" person that provides excellent instruction at a beginner's level. The fascination of this book is that as home computers become more powerful, they are still limited in their effect on the external environment, except through dedicated peripherals, such as printers, scanners, etc. With this book, a pc port relay kit (purchased off the internet), and maybe a semester of Visual Basic instruction and " you da man ". Once you can open and close a relay connected to your parallel port from a visual basic program you are off and running. Most electrical devices in you home become fair game. This book needs an update, except for a Tour-de Force in the beginning chapters of code segments in Pascal, Assembler And Quick-Basic, the remainder of the book is in Visual basic 4.0. This reader had no problem importing the examples provided on the enclosed floppy disk into Visual Basic 5.0 . This author has also written a sister book "The Complete Serial Port ", and it is on my "must read " list.
Reviews:
Most certainly worth the money I paid for it: i found this book to be of great use. it is fairly well written, comes with software and lots of sample circuit schematics for building things. there dont appear to be that many books on this subject available (last time i looked on amazon i got 6 results) and i was pleased to find that this book provided me with the information i required to complete certain projects. household automation and a security system being among them. i have to admit that the visual basic code is a bit long winded, and am left asking the question, why not just use assembly language (3 lines of code required to write to or read from a port, as opposed to dozens of lines of code to do it with visual basic). though i guess most people dont have time to go and learn how to program in assembler before hand. but if your reading this and have considered maybe learning assembly language, i urge you to do so. its not neally as hard as people say, just takes some getting used to and some patience. a good beginner assembly language book is Kip R. Irvine's "assembly language for intel based computers". and a more advanced one which i hold in high regard is "The 80x86 IBM PC and Compatible Computers (Volumes I and II) Assembly Language, Design, and Interfacing". NOTE: assembly language is really the only way to go for real time control. overall im very happy i bought this book and would recommend it to anyone wanting this information, unless they were intending to do something with an nt based operating system, in which case this book is useless to them, beyond explaining how the parallel port works, and for the example circuits.
This is a must for every hardware and software hacker! Jan really created a masterpiece here. This book is a must for every hacker's library. Every Visual Basic user needs the information in this book if they plan to use the PP for I/O. In addition, it is full of very helpful information. No fluf pages here, all solid meat! Doing Project work? Excellent book. Technical issues discussed with great clarity and thourough understanding.A painstacking effort. Equally useful for hobyyists and professionals. Provides great insight into the working of parallel port and how best we can make use of this feature for interfacing the PC with external world.Several practical circuits given along with the VB programs. -Strongly Recommended.
It helped me create a working interface...: I suppose the best comment I can make is that I went from not knowing anything about the parallel port, to creating a successful and fairly fast interface between a PC and an FPGA core (that I also created) using nothing but this book. I use this core circuit now to interface to my hardware designs at work, and quickly develop and modify GUI interfaces in Visual Basic. I can download multi-megabit configuration files to my circuits in about 10 seconds via my parallel port implementation. The LabView folks with their custom DIO cards and kludgey software updating are all green with envy. ;-) So, if this book can get this Mac-head developing parallel port interfaces to custom hardware under Windows NT within a span of three weeks, it's got to be pretty good!
Very useful indeed: Reviewer: John P O'Connor (Germany) - See all my reviews For many people involved in a project to connect something to a PC parallel port this book will be the only one needed. It contains detailed information about almost all aspects of parallel port interfacing for PC systems. The author covers the port from the nitty gritty of designing and building custom hardware to connect to the parallel port to the higher level protocols such as the IEEE standard for daisy chain negotiation on the port. The book covers all of the different modes of operation including ECP and EPP as well as the original parallel port and the PS/2 or bidirectional port. As well as the descriptions of these aspects of the parallel port the book includes a disk with code to access and drive the port from Windows Visual Basic programs. The book is aimed squarely at the PC and Windows world but it is applicable outside that environment. Many systems now include parallel ports that are register compatible with the PC parallel port from a programming point of view. More that that, the protocols that operate between the computer and the peripheral are standard and so something like the daisy chain protocol is relevant to any architecture that wants to use it. My only criticism is the way in which some information is presented. It's not that anything is left out, but by way of an example, the IEEE standard document is a more readable description of the daisy chain protocol than this book.
Very thorough and informative.....good job as usual for Jan: I have read Jan's columns for years in various electronics magazines and papers. She does not disappoint in this book. She presents the subject of PC interfacing very thoroughly and with much detail. Her use of Visual Basic was important so that the book would appeal and be usable to the most widest audience possible. Not everyone is a C programmer so I think the book would be useful to all. The book cleared up many concepts for me. Very well written.