15 Dec
2013
15 Dec
'13
3:51 p.m.
On 15/12/2013 22:10, Mouse wrote:
Relevant only to people who confuse "parallel port" with "printer
interface".
Unfortunately, that's enough people that we (FSVO "we") end up losing
an extremely useful interface....
That is an interesting question, and I think the answer is "it depends
on what you mean" especially when running a 64-bit OS .....
Firstly PCI-Express is a serial bus with optional multiple paths so how
the system manages the port mappings I have no idea but whatever it does
any card on PCI can't just appear an an I/O address (well I don't think
so any way). I believe Express Card is basically PCI-Express in a small
format with hot plug....
Secondly 32-bit programs run in an emulation , so can't see real
hardware and there is no Virtual i/o space again as far as I know so
they couldn't see real ports....
Now I have PCI-Express COM: and LPT: ports. They both produce LPT or COM
devices that can be used by legacy code through the BIOS interface.
The COM: ports have device addresses that show up in device manager on
the resources tab. However they are @ 0xC000 - 0xC007 which I seem to
remember is outside the range of port numbers a 16-bit app can access,
(not sure about 32-bit) so they probably aren't useful for old programs.
They work fine with Windows programs such as Hyperterm (It does work if
you copy it off an XP disk and REGSVR the DLLs) and PCOMMS.
The "parrallel" card creates an "LPT" device BUT it does not have a
resources tab in device manager at least when I am running 64-bit
Windows. However it does appear to be accessible as a device. From a
DOS prompt "Copy file.txt lpt1:" will plot a an HPGL file on a plotter
plugged into "LPT1"....
I also have a USB printer adaptors and that is a pure "Printer
Interfaces", it doesn't have a matching LPTn interface....
However some how VMWare can virtulize the LPT port. So if I run XP in
VMWare player I get real port addresses. At least some bit twiddling
programs work as I can program my really old Spartan 3e "Sample Pack"
boards using XP. These can only be programmed with the Diligent Parallel
Port programming cable. This is definitley "bit twiddling" as it talks
to the JTAG interface on the sample pack boards, JTAG is serial, and the
interface has only circuitry to convert from 5v to 3.3 volt JTAG....
So "is it a parallel port", probably not, but if I can code to it in the
same way I can probably live with it...
> To bad the parallel port has also gone the way of
the serial port.
Well as most printers are USB or Network Attached [...] I know its not a huge number but E-Bay returns 86
hits for
PCI-Express Printer card, and there are a few Express Card adaptors
for Laptops.
But do they offer parallel ports, or only printer interfaces?
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Dave Wade G4UGM
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