I have never read a parallel port in MFC yet.  I need to read the input data 
on the port tonight for a dog and pony tomorrow. I tried the CParallelPort 
class but it didn't build and seems more than I really needed.. I am just 
reading the state of the bits as there is a rotary switch connected to 
them..

ANy links or methods.. AM I missing the obvious?

Thanks again all.

Nappy 

First, using the parallel port for anything is intrinsically dangerous.  The standard
parallel port driver does not support reading from it.  (Besides, modern machines don't
have parallel ports).  You will have to search using google for a parallel port driver
that supports reading...they are out there.  Whether or not you can make an online
purchase tonight is problematic.  

I have no idea what CParallelPort is, but it sounds like one of those gross hacks from
MS-DOS.   Even if it could build, it almost certainly wouldn't work.  It probably tries to
do IN and OUT instructions on the parallel port address, which cannot work in a real
operating system.

Note also that connecting a rotary switch is dangerous because the make/break can cause
voltage surges in the drivers which will fry them.  Unless you have signal conditioning
circuitry you are at risk.
				joe

On Sun, 6 Jul 2008 16:42:01 -0700, "nappy" <n@n.n> wrote:

>I have never read a parallel port in MFC yet.  I need to read the input data 
>on the port tonight for a dog and pony tomorrow. I tried the CParallelPort 
>class but it didn't build and seems more than I really needed.. I am just 
>reading the state of the bits as there is a rotary switch connected to 
>them..
>
>ANy links or methods.. AM I missing the obvious?
>
>Thanks again all.
>
>Nappy 
>
Joseph M. Newcomer [MVP]
email: newcomer@flounder.com
Web: http://www.flounder.com
MVP Tips: http://www.flounder.com/mvp_tips.htm

"nappy" <n@n.n> wrote in message 
news:2Kcck.17247$Ri.9458@flpi146.ffdc.sbc.com...
>I have never read a parallel port in MFC yet.  I need to read the input 
>data on the port tonight for a dog and pony tomorrow. I tried the 
>CParallelPort class but it didn't build and seems more than I really 
>needed.. I am just reading the state of the bits as there is a rotary 
>switch connected to them..
>
> ANy links or methods.. AM I missing the obvious?
>
> Thanks again all.
>
> Nappy


You need a special device driver for this.  You can probably find a suitable 
freeware one at
http://www.lvr.com/parport.htm

-- 
Scott McPhillips [VC++ MVP] 

"Joseph M. Newcomer" <newcomer@flounder.com> wrote in message 
news:okq274tjbtrmp0usq3nfdm7mn5vt9rpmd5@4ax.com...
> First, using the parallel port for anything is intrinsically dangerous. 
> The standard
> parallel port driver does not support reading from it.  (Besides, modern 
> machines don't
> have parallel ports).  You will have to search using google for a parallel 
> port driver
> that supports reading...they are out there.  Whether or not you can make 
> an online
> purchase tonight is problematic.
>
> I have no idea what CParallelPort is, but it sounds like one of those 
> gross hacks from
> MS-DOS.   Even if it could build, it almost certainly wouldn't work.  It 
> probably tries to
> do IN and OUT instructions on the parallel port address, which cannot work 
> in a real
> operating system.
>
> Note also that connecting a rotary switch is dangerous because the 
> make/break can cause
> voltage surges in the drivers which will fry them.  Unless you have signal 
> conditioning
> circuitry you are at risk.
> joe

>


Joe.. its a 5 inch gun controller on a Navy battleship..  no need to worry 
about the signal conditioning..

nonetheless. I've been doing low pass filtering and debouncing since 1978.

:)

I found the inpout32 lib does exactly what I need and any par port can be 
set to read data on its input.

Thanks for the non-software-related answers thoough! :)))






> On Sun, 6 Jul 2008 16:42:01 -0700, "nappy" <n@n.n> wrote:
>
>>I have never read a parallel port in MFC yet.  I need to read the input 
>>data
>>on the port tonight for a dog and pony tomorrow. I tried the CParallelPort
>>class but it didn't build and seems more than I really needed.. I am just
>>reading the state of the bits as there is a rotary switch connected to
>>them..
>>
>>ANy links or methods.. AM I missing the obvious?
>>
>>Thanks again all.
>>
>>Nappy
>>
> Joseph M. Newcomer [MVP]
> email: newcomer@flounder.com
> Web: http://www.flounder.com
> MVP Tips: http://www.flounder.com/mvp_tips.htm 

>
> Joe.. its a 5 inch gun controller on a Navy battleship..  no need to worry 
> about the signal conditioning..

TO be more concise with my sarcasm

And everyone knows there are NO signal  problems or noise on battleships 
right?


Oh yeah! 

"nappy" <n@n.n> wrote in message 
news:7zhck.7648$L_.3595@flpi150.ffdc.sbc.com...
> >
>> Joe.. its a 5 inch gun controller on a Navy battleship..  no need to 
>> worry about the signal conditioning..
>
> TO be more concise with my sarcasm
>
> And everyone knows there are NO signal  problems or noise on battleships 
> right?
>
>
> Oh yeah!
>

don't worry .. it's a prototype.. 

On Sun, 6 Jul 2008 22:54:15 -0700, "nappy" <n@n.n> wrote:

>
>"nappy" <n@n.n> wrote in message 
>news:7zhck.7648$L_.3595@flpi150.ffdc.sbc.com...
>> >
>>> Joe.. its a 5 inch gun controller on a Navy battleship..  no need to 
>>> worry about the signal conditioning..
>>
>> TO be more concise with my sarcasm
>>
>> And everyone knows there are NO signal  problems or noise on battleships 
>> right?
>>
>>
>> Oh yeah!
>>
>
>don't worry .. it's a prototype.. 
>

That's OK, we all know Joe isn't a hardware guy. Windows safely insulates
him from those requirements.

I've got working EEPROM programmers that do all their I/O via the printer
ports and they have been bi-directional for years now. The interfaces are
mostly LS245's IIRC, you might find some 74HC245's that will be more
resistant.

Signal problems? Naw, never heard of 'em. The radar buzzing in my head
drowns out signal problems. 

Actually, for years I *was* a hardware guy, and in fact in my youth managed to burn out
the inputs to a system by using direct coupling to a switch.  Embarassing.  I got out of
doing hardware when it was no longer possible for a hobbyist to do anything unless I was
willing to buy a surface-mount wave-soldering device.  

Note the EEPROM programmers have full signal conditioning.  But I've seen people just hook
up switches to wires to the parallel port (as I had done with a marginally different
interface) and suffer the consequences.  It isn't like I haven't seen this happen before.

I did hardware in the 1970s, and still have my oscilloscope/logic analyzer.  I also have a
large inventory of 7400-class TTL chips (shows when I got out it), several hundred, a
wirewrap gun, a huge inventory of wirewrap sockets, and a complete fabricating workshop
I've not used in about 15 years. I worked on two different circuit/wirewrap layout
programs, one a homebrew from CMU and the other from Stanford, where I modified both to
support arbitrary board geometries and coordinate systems, extended them to support
different kinds of chips (0.3x24 pin; the assumption had previously been that any chip >
22 pins was 0.6), and built large libraries of chip definitions for them.
					joe

On Sun, 06 Jul 2008 23:08:42 -0700, Geoff <geoff@invalid.invalid> wrote:

>On Sun, 6 Jul 2008 22:54:15 -0700, "nappy" <n@n.n> wrote:
>
>>
>>"nappy" <n@n.n> wrote in message 
>>news:7zhck.7648$L_.3595@flpi150.ffdc.sbc.com...
>>> >
>>>> Joe.. its a 5 inch gun controller on a Navy battleship..  no need to 
>>>> worry about the signal conditioning..
>>>
>>> TO be more concise with my sarcasm
>>>
>>> And everyone knows there are NO signal  problems or noise on battleships 
>>> right?
>>>
>>>
>>> Oh yeah!
>>>
>>
>>don't worry .. it's a prototype.. 
>>
>
>That's OK, we all know Joe isn't a hardware guy. Windows safely insulates
>him from those requirements.
>
>I've got working EEPROM programmers that do all their I/O via the printer
>ports and they have been bi-directional for years now. The interfaces are
>mostly LS245's IIRC, you might find some 74HC245's that will be more
>resistant.
>
>Signal problems? Naw, never heard of 'em. The radar buzzing in my head
>drowns out signal problems. 
Joseph M. Newcomer [MVP]
email: newcomer@flounder.com
Web: http://www.flounder.com
MVP Tips: http://www.flounder.com/mvp_tips.htm

On Mon, 07 Jul 2008 08:51:37 -0400, Joseph M. Newcomer
<newcomer@flounder.com> wrote:

>Actually, for years I *was* a hardware guy, and in fact in my youth managed to burn out
>the inputs to a system by using direct coupling to a switch.  Embarassing.  I got out of
>doing hardware...

Blowing stuff up.

Good you got out when you did. You proved you were a hardware guy, just not
a very good one. :)

My eyes can't take working on the small stuff anymore. I used to be able to
spot a bad solder joint or trace from 20 paces. Now I need to back off 20
paces to see the board. :) I carry a loupe now to see stuff when I am on
the road. Otherwise a bench magnifier is de rigeur.

I just finished using a Canon FB620P flatbed scanner to scan a motel
receipt. It connects to my laptop via the printer port. Bi-directional I/O
on a printer port driver on XP. Certainly not MFC since it would be a
driver developed on the DDK.

Somewhere I have an old CD ROM drive that was used for booting and
installing OS/2 back in the day. Couple of floppies to boot it, then it
drove the printer port in ECP mode to read the CD. Those were fun times.

I wasn't too bad, after several years, but some of my first tries were notably bad
(including the fried drivers incident) until I caught on to all the details.  Then I got
bored with it, because it was too hard to create interesting devices.  A few years after I
left the hardware field, Xylinx came up with their FPGA, and I was back doing hardware for
a while, but then the project finished, and I couldn't afford the development tools on my
own.  But I can still debug with an oscilloscope if I need to.  The last I did it was
about six years ago, and I was surprised by how much I remembered about technique.

I created the hardware course at CMU for CS graduate students; prior to my teaching it,
there was no good hands-on course for hardware (there was a computer architecture course,
but the closest they got to real hardware was the photos in the textbook).

I couldn't go back to it, though; my vision is just no longer suitable for close work.  I
travel with three pairs of glasses (normal trifocals, computer bifocals, and close-work
reading glasses) and it is a real pain.  

What surprises me is that Microsoft doesn't support ECP by default.
					joe

On Mon, 07 Jul 2008 06:40:29 -0700, Geoff <geoff@invalid.invalid> wrote:

>On Mon, 07 Jul 2008 08:51:37 -0400, Joseph M. Newcomer
><newcomer@flounder.com> wrote:
>
>>Actually, for years I *was* a hardware guy, and in fact in my youth managed to burn out
>>the inputs to a system by using direct coupling to a switch.  Embarassing.  I got out of
>>doing hardware...
>
>Blowing stuff up.
>
>Good you got out when you did. You proved you were a hardware guy, just not
>a very good one. :)
>
>My eyes can't take working on the small stuff anymore. I used to be able to
>spot a bad solder joint or trace from 20 paces. Now I need to back off 20
>paces to see the board. :) I carry a loupe now to see stuff when I am on
>the road. Otherwise a bench magnifier is de rigeur.
>
>I just finished using a Canon FB620P flatbed scanner to scan a motel
>receipt. It connects to my laptop via the printer port. Bi-directional I/O
>on a printer port driver on XP. Certainly not MFC since it would be a
>driver developed on the DDK.
>
>Somewhere I have an old CD ROM drive that was used for booting and
>installing OS/2 back in the day. Couple of floppies to boot it, then it
>drove the printer port in ECP mode to read the CD. Those were fun times.
Joseph M. Newcomer [MVP]
email: newcomer@flounder.com
Web: http://www.flounder.com
MVP Tips: http://www.flounder.com/mvp_tips.htm

I have set up my shop for SMT and super miniature hardware development here. 
A couple of micrtoscopes  and the rest.

A lot of my clients are working with super miniature stuff and in addition 
to develping the code I routinely have to build and test my prototypes. And 
parts are no longer made in flavors humans are supposed to deal with..

So I had to develop a method for building with the latest SMT devices. About 
the only thing I haven't done here are BGA.

I built the world's smallest body worn EKG recorder a little while back and 
I had to use some interesting techniques to get the prototypes built. I love 
that solder paste in the hypo applicators that's for sure. I rarely even see 
a strand of solder anymore.

A lot of my work deals with external inputs and signal conditioning is of 
prime importance. As is filtering in the software realm. I am not a DSP guy.

I am getting ready to throw out my bins of DIPS and 20 year old chips.. Hard 
to do though..   TTHOSE parts had their values printed on them!!

nappy.

Now the time I switched out my 12V 1/2A for 12V 3A and moved the RAM
chips that didn't burn my fingers to the Monitor area so that I could
troubleshoot from there DOESN'T COMPARE to the guy I worked with who
had to vector his program to the upper 512 bytes of memory, and work
on the lower 512 byte hardware WHILE IT WAS STILL HOT because it was
too expensive to turn the thing off. Now he was an old timer! ({{:-)=.
Ah, the days of data and address bus lights, like the times you could
shake your LED calculator to see the display multiplex, or hold it to
your ear to hear the driver chips sing - those days are gone.({{:.-(=

On Jul 7, 10:25 am, Joseph M. Newcomer <newco...@flounder.com> wrote:
> I wasn't too bad, after several years, but some of my first tries were notably bad
> (including the fried drivers incident) until I caught on to all the details.  Then I got
> bored with it, because it was too hard to create interesting devices.  A few years after I
> left the hardware field, Xylinx came up with their FPGA, and I was back doing hardware for
> a while, but then the project finished, and I couldn't afford the development tools on my
> own.  But I can still debug with an oscilloscope if I need to.  The last I did it was
> about six years ago, and I was surprised by how much I remembered about technique.
>
> I created the hardware course at CMU for CS graduate students; prior to my teaching it,
> there was no good hands-on course for hardware (there was a computer architecture course,
> but the closest they got to real hardware was the photos in the textbook).
>
> I couldn't go back to it, though; my vision is just no longer suitable for close work.  I
> travel with three pairs of glasses (normal trifocals, computer bifocals, and close-work
> reading glasses) and it is a real pain.
>
> What surprises me is that Microsoft doesn't support ECP by default.
>                                         joe
>
>
>
> On Mon, 07 Jul 2008 06:40:29 -0700, Geoff <ge...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> >On Mon, 07 Jul 2008 08:51:37 -0400, Joseph M. Newcomer
> ><newco...@flounder.com> wrote:
>
> >>Actually, for years I *was* a hardware guy, and in fact in my youth managed to burn out
> >>the inputs to a system by using direct coupling to a switch.  Embarassing.  I got out of
> >>doing hardware...
>
> >Blowing stuff up.
>
> >Good you got out when you did. You proved you were a hardware guy, just not
> >a very good one. :)
>
> >My eyes can't take working on the small stuff anymore. I used to be able to
> >spot a bad solder joint or trace from 20 paces. Now I need to back off 20
> >paces to see the board. :) I carry a loupe now to see stuff when I am on
> >the road. Otherwise a bench magnifier is de rigeur.
>
> >I just finished using a Canon FB620P flatbed scanner to scan a motel
> >receipt. It connects to my laptop via the printer port. Bi-directional I/O
> >on a printer port driver on XP. Certainly not MFC since it would be a
> >driver developed on the DDK.
>
> >Somewhere I have an old CD ROM drive that was used for booting and
> >installing OS/2 back in the day. Couple of floppies to boot it, then it
> >drove the printer port in ECP mode to read the CD. Those were fun times.
>
> Joseph M. Newcomer [MVP]
> email: newco...@flounder.com
> Web:http://www.flounder.com
> MVP Tips:http://www.flounder.com/mvp_tips.htm