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What's Hanging on Your Parallel Port?
CryoStasis asks: "A buddy of mine reciently stated that 'You're not a real techie unless you have some weirdo contraption hanging off your parallel port." This comming from a guy who is using his for programing some type of micro-controller (he's being rather secretive about it until he's finished). I've decided to go into a different direction however and currently have an old NES PowerGlove hooked up that I use as a game controller. It works great and brings a whole new dimention into gaming. On the side I'm also looking at getting some kind of mouse script functioning desktop applications, no more mouse for me!. So what about everyone else. Who has something odd/unique hanging out of thier parrellel port?" Call me boring, but the only thing that hangs off of my parallel port is my printer, however I'm sure that there are a few of you out there who put their parallel port to some novel uses. Care to share?
bah????
That's precisely why NT/2000 don't let you address it, or any other hardware for that matter.
You see, I'm sure that you are an excellent assembly programmer and that your programs never fail. But, as your bah comment indicates, you won't take the time to learn how the system works as a whole. This means that your software might/probably won't play well with others, destabilizing the entire system. For this reason, NT makes you go through the HAL to access hardware. The HAL won't let you "bah" the system.
Works for me.
no...but the HAL will let you "BSOD" the system instead.
Though, there appear to be new /dev files in 2.4 that offer direct parallel port access. Don't know if they're portable.
--
Change is inevitable.
Change is inevitable.
Progress is not.
Gotta love those ibuttons...
www.ibutton.com
At my last job, I made a box that hooked to a parallel port and an AT&T phone. The box was attached to the leds on the phone. By reading the parallel port, the computer could tell which extensions were in use.
Doesn't a dot matrix count as a "wierdo contraption" nowadays?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
ObParallelPort: I had a set of LED's on mine that reported processor load, etc. I lost the stuff on a job move though. Maybe it's time to rebuild!
Hi-Technical Excellent Taste and Flavor!
I'm poking around on the back of my system, but I just don't see anything like that. Digital video, S Video, Firewire, USB, some audio ports... But a "parallel port?" Maybe that's some fancy new thing that my Apples don't have yet?
-Waldo
and a a printer have all hung off my parallel ports at one time or another.
The sound thing is neat, it was intended for notebooks, and runs in wfw3.11.
I finally bought a new web cam, so I can take my PC with the webcam on it and keep it in Linux, instead of dual booting.
later, thermo
Wasn't there an old Disney sound box that hooked up through the parallel port?
Anyway, I just though I'd point out the worst thing ever to get hooked up to the LPT port: The Xircom Pocket Ethernet Adapter. And, gack, even one for Token Ring!
It seems a general truth of PC hardware is that anything hooked into the parallel port that isn't a printer is bound to work poorly if at all.
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
It's not quite parallel per se, but my serial port has the X-10 FireCracker remote control module hanging off it.
± 29 dB
I only have a Xilinx CPLD programmer on my parallel port. On the other hand my serial ports regulairly get to talk to my Parallax SX Blitz and SX Key, a Microchip PICSTART programmer, and a computerised timing gate for recording the velocity of the balls my coilgun shoots. Another one of my computers talks to a couple of motor controllers and a few touch sensors.
Xfree 4 fixed it. But I sort of liked the MacGyver factor.
http://www.acm.wpi.edu/sinlab/
You push the button, and it updates the web page... It also has a row of LEDs that blink in a pattern that is settable over the web.
It's completely powered and controled by the paralel port.
I'm just configuring some templates for a wireless printer, used for printing parking tickets by officers with handheld computers.
HAH, got that beat! I am the operator for a VAX cluster....8 hours a day, watching all my terminals, making sure everything is still going....15 xterms that I use all day long....
Slackware: old school feel, new school gear.
It isn't there anymore. But back when I was crusing along with my 386/25, I got together the plans and put together one of those home-built D/A converters. The actual use for this device, however, was sound. Basically, it allowed you to play digitized sounds through the parallel port. And I'd play a lot of MODs through it. Those were good stuff. Of course, it was mono, and 8 bit, and not super high frequency. Frankly, even a SoundBlaster Pro would have been better.
I have a Rainbow dongle for my copy of Lightwave. AutoCAD in the single user version (not networked) also comes with a dongle.
LOAD "SIG",8,1
LOADING...
READY.
RUN
Just one, with two more free ports. It's a VT420 on a MicroVAX 3100-80. The VAX is technically on a shelf, though, not in a closet.
laser pointer.
It's hooked up through a solid-state relay so you can switch it on and off . . . it doesn't get used much now, I had it blinking net traffic on the wall at one point, but the original reason it got hooked up was for some experiments in ultra-low-cost direct datalinks between apartments. (After a fellow geek and I realized our rooms had line of sight.) We got some basic comms working with a $9 laser pointer and a simple light sensor, but it was tooo  slow for any kind of real use. Plus those 'N' batteries go quick with all that switching (and aren't cheap!) Kind of cool though.
Tap THIS, echelon! :)
Check out http://groups.yahoo.com/group/jp1 for more info.
Bob
--Mike--
Nope only kernel level processes can bluse screen a nt box, user mode apps just gives a useless Dr. Watson
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Tape reels for wheels and darlingtons for power (one amp at 5V per coil, up to two coils active per motor at a time).
Motors bolted together back to back with shorter bolts at top and longer bolts at bottom, so axles are slanted and center of gravity is below center of wheels (and thus balances on two wheels, tho it rocks back and forth a bit when it starts or stops).
Programmed (in Forth of course) to do a series of military maneuver farces.
Had to build my own parallel port when I first built it, but a PC-clone port works fine. (Original machine was a Sanyo Z80 CP/M box with ribbon cable for a bus: I stuck a Z80-PIO on it).
The thing was so goofy/hilarious I entered it into the annual student art show/contest and had it on display for a couple weeks. I used to love to sit in the lounge and see people come around the corner and confront it. They would walk in when it was pausing between performances and jump two feet in the air a couple of minutes later when it started to wave its flag like a maniac, turn in place, and do zig zags. Poor art-lovers didn't know what to think.
Back when my Linux server was hanging on my pegboard wall with no case, I had LEDs on it. I used them for indicating waiting mail, etc. Also fun to cat /dev/hda to it.
Of course, I wouldn't be a real EE geek if I hadn't put at least one motor on it over the years. I've had 2 DC motors and 6 steppers on the two parallel ports. (Use relays and an external supply or you'll burn your drivers.)
Remember, you can't spell "geek" without "EE".
I've got a pug-dog that hangs around behind my computer! I don't tether her there, she just seems to like it. At least that's better than her hanging around the front of the computer where all of her shedding hair can get sucked in by the front fan and distributed across the motherboard...
I wonder if dog hair conducts electricity? Hmm...
Amongst common uses of the parallel port besides the standard of printers, there are lots of other devices that attach to them, like scanners and Imation's SuperDisk, which is a device like a ZIP-drive, but that can store 120 MB (maybe newer versions support more). I'm sure you can find other common uses, like control of cars and other electronic devices -- kids do it a lot, controlling something like a car or an electronic arm connected to the parallel port with the adequate software.
check out my new dongle, word!
Hung like elephant.
Word Nick, good karma hording story.
The chuckster
Lemure, wtf! Don't you mean Lemur?
it's fun to program the Parallel port under Linux, DOS, win9x, I was working on a dongle project, the thing that killed me was when I arrived on NT/2K.... you need kernel-mode drivers to address it, now there are some packages to help you to do it but... when you're a micro-controller programmer that does everything in assembly, programming the NT DDK isn't the same ballpark... I was completely lost and was too lazy to learn it (had to learn C++ and windows programming... bah :) )
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
I currently have a special cable built for programming the gameboy advance hooked up to LPT1.
check out http://www.devrs.com/gba/files/mbv2faqs.php
Rats would be more funny if they could fart.
- An interface to a Dreamcast VMU for uploading / download save files and mini-games.
- A ribbon cable to a small board that looped back into the case to the front that provided a row of LED's to display CPU usage. (Actually, I used a dual parallel port add-in card to get 16 output lines for 16 mini green LED's).
- An adapter to use Sony Playstation controllers for PC games.
Also, I guess this doesn't exactly count because it's not a standard parallel port card... but I used the Datel PC Comms Link card to talk to a Sony Playstation through a Pro Action Replay with modded firmware (Caetla).Cryptnotic
My other first post is car post.
I've seen "electronic counters" attached to the computer. One implementation of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator test has a small piece that attaches to the paralell port. The piece is accessed by the program which decreases a counter inside the box every time a test is taken. That way, MBTI can charge you per test you make avaliable.
--You will rephrase your request for me to go to hell. Goto statements are not acceptable programming constructs
but then again it's a Motorola StarMax clone and my keyboard and mouse are plugged into its PS/2 ports too...
:(
Too bad most mac printer drivers aren't parallel port savvy
I usually wish my notebook didn't even have a parallel port. It does nothing but take up space.
Call me boring, but of all the desktops I have, just one has a printer hanging off its parallel port. I think a more interesting question to ask would be how many terminals do you have hanging off the Vax in your closet? (2/8) ;-)
--
One future, two choices. Oppose them or let them destroy us.
a while ago before I got something that could do midi, I had a flat, rectangular wooden panel with a few sheet metal squares screwed on it each connected to a different data pin. Two sticks wrapped in coax shield were used to supply voltage to any metal square touched and a sound was triggered on detection....voila'...homebrew drums......the port was on an amiga though....
I'm building a PIC programmer that is controlled by the parallel port.
Sad part is that I'll probably only ever use it once to program the chip needed for the *BIG LOUD VOICE* Universal Infrared Reciever!
It's not really related the the parallel and data transfer, per se, but often you'll see a tethered child hanging around the back of my system. I don't know why really. He's just there.
--Giving to trolls for the benefit of us all
Ok, as a college project I was tasked with pointing a radio telescope (basically so they could watch shomaker-levy crash into Jupiter a year or so later). Used the parallel port to send the commands to turn antenna up/down/left/right and get feedback from the antenna on where it was pointed... From there is was just a bunch of math to figure out where to point the antenna when I was done
Xircom makes a nice PP Ethernet adapter perfect for that 386 laptop that doesn't have a PCMCIA slot. And it even has the cool "tank tread" for tightening the screws, and hauls at 48k/sec on a standard parallel port! (Oooooh.)
I only got to the testing phase, as i lost interest (plus the small problem with toasters and such turning on when i was not at home..) It only cost me a burned out parallelport, as i forgot some resistors in the first model.. a.k.a. Ooops!
Well at least learnt to include protective resistors between computers and home made stuff..
Yours Yazeran
Plan: To go to Mars one day with a hammer.
i removed my parallel port and serial ports. my system is all ps2 and usb. leaves irqs for modems, NICs and capture cards
m.kelley
www.mkelley.net
m.kelley
life is like a freeway, if you don't look you could miss it.
It is actually a BBC Micro that is pre-programmed in BBC Basic to ring the school bells by switching on the tape motor for a few seconds then back off again.
The cool thing is, we can set our clocks to synchronise with the BBC and can be all set to leave class at exactly the right moment.
Back to Something totally boring, I only have a Zip drive running of my ppa port BUT i do have this strange old "Portable Hard Disk" that is ment to connect somehow. How? I have no Idea.
Right now I have a Zip drive, a scanner, and a printer daisy-chained off my laptop parallel port. Yes, they all work like that (I wouldn't try using them at the same time though). At school this year I had a 486DX2/66 with a 4G drive in an old HP scanner network module (these are just big enough to hold a motherboard, hard drive, and three cards). It runs Slackware of course. This year I had several LEDs, one of which ran across the room to the partially disassembled peephole. A simple shell script let me use fetchmail to tell if I had email from down the hall. Last year I hacked a Nintendo R.O.B. and mounted a webcam on it, attached limit switches that interrupted the signal that was making it move in that direction. With a couple simple CGI scripts it was a robotic webcam. One day it received over 12% of all hits within my school's domain, more than the school's main page!
By the way I'm a double-E at Rose-Hulman Inst. of Tech, great school. Check it out if you think you're smart, and still have the chance to go to school. I chose it over MIT and Cal Tech.
...
I don't have a printer--I'drather recycle an electron than kill a tree... Just ~1/4" of dust (~6mm for you folks @ NASA).
"What is the sound of one belly slapping?"