PCMCIA - parallel card, Quick Basic V4.5 in Win XP

[PSRumbagh]

I have a Quatech SPP-100 PCMCIA to parallel port (IEEE-1284) card that I am
trying to access with Quick Basic V4.5 running in the DOS Emulation window
(DOS Prompt) of Windows XP. The I/O range of the PCMCIA - parallel card is
@H0400 - @H0407 and there is no IRQ assigned. None of the cards data output
lines (D7 - D0) change state when I run my Quick Basic port exercising
program. The card is functional as I can print from MSWord to my HP-932C
DeskJet printer through it's parallel (IEEE-1284) port. The manufacturer,
Quatech, says that I should NOT have to install the DOS drivers for the
SPP-100 if I am running in the DOS window of Windows XP. Note, the
exercising program works well in the DOS Prompt window on my HP Pavilion 6465
Desktop running Windows 98 FE. What are some reasons why I am not getting
any results with this test setup under Windows XP home edition?

 

[V Green]

Windows NT (of which Windows XP is a descendant)
does NOT allow direct access of hardware via applications,
everything must go through the Windows API, whch QB will never do.
It's considered a security issue. Win 98 does not share the NT
architecture, and allows this.

There *might* be third-party solutions that alow QB to do this
under XP, but I've never seen one.

Might be time to learn Visual Basic / .NET ...


"PSRumbagh" <PSRumbagh@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:297D64F6-FB86-49A8-961A-B6E2B494C3AB@microsoft.com...
> I have a Quatech SPP-100 PCMCIA to parallel port (IEEE-1284) card that I am
> trying to access with Quick Basic V4.5 running in the DOS Emulation window
> (DOS Prompt) of Windows XP. The I/O range of the PCMCIA - parallel card is
> @H0400 - @H0407 and there is no IRQ assigned. None of the cards data output
> lines (D7 - D0) change state when I run my Quick Basic port exercising
> program. The card is functional as I can print from MSWord to my HP-932C
> DeskJet printer through it's parallel (IEEE-1284) port. The manufacturer,
> Quatech, says that I should NOT have to install the DOS drivers for the
> SPP-100 if I am running in the DOS window of Windows XP. Note, the
> exercising program works well in the DOS Prompt window on my HP Pavilion 6465
> Desktop running Windows 98 FE. What are some reasons why I am not getting
> any results with this test setup under Windows XP home edition?

 

[Patrick Keenan]

"PSRumbagh" <PSRumbagh@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:297D64F6-FB86-49A8-961A-B6E2B494C3AB@microsoft.com...
>I have a Quatech SPP-100 PCMCIA to parallel port (IEEE-1284) card that I am
> trying to access with Quick Basic V4.5 running in the DOS Emulation window
> (DOS Prompt) of Windows XP.

Command prompt, not DOS prompt. It's XP without the GUI, and it has the
same restrictions re hardware.

This is not just a pedantic comment, particularly in this circumstance.
Looks are deceiving here.

> The I/O range of the PCMCIA - parallel card is
> @H0400 - @H0407 and there is no IRQ assigned. None of the cards data
> output
> lines (D7 - D0) change state when I run my Quick Basic port exercising
> program.

... and the restriction in force is that NT-based systems don't allow
applications direct access to hardware.

This result (lack of change) is not surprising.


> The card is functional as I can print from MSWord to my HP-932C
> DeskJet printer through it's parallel (IEEE-1284) port. The manufacturer,
> Quatech, says that I should NOT have to install the DOS drivers for the
> SPP-100 if I am running in the DOS window of Windows XP.

Of course not, because the XP drivers are in use. But that doesn't help
you.

Do they tell you how to change states of any particular bit under NT/XP?
Provide a generic driver with documentation? Unfortunately, the answer to
that is probably no.

When you print using the card, you are using device drivers that are written
specifically to work with the kernel and the port. Your QB program is not
doing this and is prevented from accessing the hardware.

The only thing that surprises me is that you aren't complaining of error
messages.

> Note, the
> exercising program works well in the DOS Prompt window on my HP Pavilion
> 6465
> Desktop running Windows 98 FE.

Win9x has major differences from NT and XP. There may be some visual
similarities, but there are significant technical differences that are not
visible.

You cannot make a direct comparison between the two. Some hardware that
works fine under win9x will never work under NT/XP, because the vendors will
never write device drivers for old hardware.

> What are some reasons why I am not getting
> any results with this test setup under Windows XP home edition?

Yes, see above. There's a strong possibility it simply cannot ever work
the way you are using it.

If you google things like "direct access to hardware XP" or "direct control
of parallel ports XP" you'll find a number of resources, for example...

http://www.direct-io.com/
http://www.programmersheaven.com/zone15/cat1433/index.htm
http://www.powerbasic.com/support/forums/Forum4/HTML/011434.html
http://www.lvr.com/parport.htm
http://www.epanorama.net/circuits/parallel_output.html
You might also have a look at places like Circuit Cellar.
http://www.circuitcellar.com/

Ultimately the best thing to do may be to move away from QB and to port the
program to a language that works with NT/XP, if you want to use this with
XP. But that way, what you write may not work on Win9x systems.

HTH
-pk

 

[PSRumbagh]

I got the freeware program DIRECTIO.EXE from website www.direct-io.com and
installed it. It allows Quick Basic V4.5, which is running in the DOS
emulation window of Windows XP, to access the parallel port I/O on the
Quatech SPP-100 PCMCIA to IEEE 1284 card!

"V Green" wrote:

> Windows NT (of which Windows XP is a descendant)
> does NOT allow direct access of hardware via applications,
> everything must go through the Windows API, whch QB will never do.
> It's considered a security issue. Win 98 does not share the NT
> architecture, and allows this.
>
> There *might* be third-party solutions that alow QB to do this
> under XP, but I've never seen one.
>
> Might be time to learn Visual Basic / .NET ...
>
>
> "PSRumbagh" <PSRumbagh@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:297D64F6-FB86-49A8-961A-B6E2B494C3AB@microsoft.com...
> > I have a Quatech SPP-100 PCMCIA to parallel port (IEEE-1284) card that I am
> > trying to access with Quick Basic V4.5 running in the DOS Emulation window
> > (DOS Prompt) of Windows XP. The I/O range of the PCMCIA - parallel card is
> > @H0400 - @H0407 and there is no IRQ assigned. None of the cards data output
> > lines (D7 - D0) change state when I run my Quick Basic port exercising
> > program. The card is functional as I can print from MSWord to my HP-932C
> > DeskJet printer through it's parallel (IEEE-1284) port. The manufacturer,
> > Quatech, says that I should NOT have to install the DOS drivers for the
> > SPP-100 if I am running in the DOS window of Windows XP. Note, the
> > exercising program works well in the DOS Prompt window on my HP Pavilion 6465
> > Desktop running Windows 98 FE. What are some reasons why I am not getting
> > any results with this test setup under Windows XP home edition?
>
>
>

 

[V Green]

Good show. I'll bookmark that one for future use.

I had to use a similar utility with VB 3.0 to allow direct
access to the parallel port so I could control my HVAC system
with it.

"PSRumbagh" <PSRumbagh@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:0B01C4D0-E382-4AF6-AEB2-1AA6D6F4BD42@microsoft.com...
> I got the freeware program DIRECTIO.EXE from website www.direct-io.com and
> installed it. It allows Quick Basic V4.5, which is running in the DOS
> emulation window of Windows XP, to access the parallel port I/O on the
> Quatech SPP-100 PCMCIA to IEEE 1284 card!
>
> "V Green" wrote:
>
> > Windows NT (of which Windows XP is a descendant)
> > does NOT allow direct access of hardware via applications,
> > everything must go through the Windows API, whch QB will never do.
> > It's considered a security issue. Win 98 does not share the NT
> > architecture, and allows this.
> >
> > There *might* be third-party solutions that alow QB to do this
> > under XP, but I've never seen one.
> >
> > Might be time to learn Visual Basic / .NET ...
> >
> >
> > "PSRumbagh" <PSRumbagh@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> > news:297D64F6-FB86-49A8-961A-B6E2B494C3AB@microsoft.com...
> > > I have a Quatech SPP-100 PCMCIA to parallel port (IEEE-1284) card that I
am
> > > trying to access with Quick Basic V4.5 running in the DOS Emulation window
> > > (DOS Prompt) of Windows XP. The I/O range of the PCMCIA - parallel card
is
> > > @H0400 - @H0407 and there is no IRQ assigned. None of the cards data
output
> > > lines (D7 - D0) change state when I run my Quick Basic port exercising
> > > program. The card is functional as I can print from MSWord to my HP-932C
> > > DeskJet printer through it's parallel (IEEE-1284) port. The manufacturer,
> > > Quatech, says that I should NOT have to install the DOS drivers for the
> > > SPP-100 if I am running in the DOS window of Windows XP. Note, the
> > > exercising program works well in the DOS Prompt window on my HP Pavilion
6465
> > > Desktop running Windows 98 FE. What are some reasons why I am not getting
> > > any results with this test setup under Windows XP home edition?
> >
> >
> >