School, hobby electronics: Using the parallel port

This material is REALLY not 'polished'... yet!! (Other stuff on my site is a little more user friendly, I hope... but for now... here's the information, even if it is badly presented.)


Bookmark this page, so you can get back to it, and try clicking here for some 'polished' distillate derived from older versions of this page.

As I surf the net, I come across various things that I wish someone had told me about. In theory, one day it will all be available in the polished sections of my website. In the meantime, if you're willing to 'dig' through some disorganised material, you may be rewarded with gems'! School, hobby electronics: Using the parallel port on IBM-type computers.

This material is about the parallel port on MS-DOS / Windows computers. It sometimes spills over into things of more general nature when talking about devices you might attach to the parpallel port.

PLEASE NOTE: You CAN damage your computer if you make ill-advised connections to it. Any use you make of anything you find here must be AT YOUR OWN RISK

Having said that... let me stress that there is a lot of fun to be had with electronics projects. Find yourself an 'antique' pc. If you can't rescue one from a dusty corner, you can buy one for almost nothing. You can use the same monitor as you use on your main machine. If you wreck the antique, it hasn't cost you much!

In some cases, the text is snipped from other sources. Therefore, among other things, the personal pronoun may not refer to the editor of this page. If, on the other hand something is identified as coming from 'TKB', he IS the pages's editor!

Ad from page's editor: Yes.. I do enjoy compiling these things for you... hope they are helpful. However.. this doesn't pay my bills!!! If you find this stuff useful, (and you run an MS-DOS or Windows pc) please visit my freeware and shareware page, download something, and circulate it for me? Links on your page to this page would also be appreciated!

Click here to visit editor's freeware, shareware page.

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Q: Please describe a temperature sensor capable of resolvingat least 0.05 C.

Answers:
See:
http://www.national.com/pf/LM/LM56.html

The LM56 is a precision low power thermostat. Two stable temperature trip points (VT1 and VT2) are generated by dividing down the LM56 1.250V bandgap voltage reference using 3 external resistors. The LM56 has two digital outputs. OUT1 goes LOW when the temperature exceeds T1 and goes HIGH when the the temperature goes below (T1-THYST). Similarly, OUT2 goes LOW when the temperature exceeds T2 and goes HIGH when the temperature goes below (T2-THYST). THYST is an internally set 5°C typical hysteresis. The LM56 is available in an 8-lead Mini-SO8 surface mount package and an 8-lead small outline package.

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A group of Computing teachers in Western Australia have been working on designing simple and inexpensive 'real world' interfaces for use with MSW Logo (and other languages). It adds a whole new dimension to using computers in schools. You can find details at the URL below.

If you're interested, drop me a line.

Regards,

Jim Fuller
TIC Computing Department
Mandurah Senior High School
Gibla St
MANDURAH 6210
Western Australia
Phone: (61) (08) 9535 3800
http://www.southwest.com.au/~jfuller/mswlogo.html

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Parallel port...

Pls Visit my home page:

http://home.pacific.net.sg/~technova

for more info and kindly give me your comments

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There is a web page about a parallel port interface box. The page lists the pin out, the addresses of the port and some Quick Basic code. It is at...

http://www.cs.columbia.edu/%7epaul/circuits/parallel/parallel.html And there's another at....

http://ww2.sd.cybernex.net/~clevengr/lpt/

Good, comprehensive, not expensive [tkb view]

Does anyone know of a really good VERY basic introduction to digital electronics for people who know almost nothing, and need help to get started?

Here is how you can send answer. 
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In article <894214468.20307.0.nnrp-06.9e98947e@news.demon.co.uk>,
          Mark@hutchmrj.demon.co.uk ("Mark R J Hutchings") wrote:
 
Hi,  I am building a video digitiser as part of a university project.  I
have a problem which is I have designed my hardware but I have no idea how
to interface it with the PC. Could somebody please email me with the basic
pin-out of the parallel port and if anyone has any basic code to enable me
to read and write from the port and copy the information to a disk file I
would be gratefull

FAQ anyone?  I quote:

2.7a Parallel/Serial/Game Ports

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Hi All!

I need to control LED's connected to the parallel port.
(DOS/Pascal or Win31/Delphi1)
But I dont know how to...
Please help me.

Thanks,
Zoltan Bagoly (zoli@wss066.gee.bme.hu)


Here is how you can contact this page's editor.


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