Parallel Port Control program - Help! -

[byte2much]

Hello All,

I'm new to this forum and to the world of I/O Ports.  I was wondering if anyone has a simple Parallel Port control program that runs on Windows XP pro.  Here's what I'm referring to:  A program that displays in a window eight buttons, each button representing Data0 thru Data8.  You press on these buttons to activate each Bit.  You press the button again to turn off.  My project which requires this is a automated Dome for a remote Astronomy observatory.  I have all electronics design and tested, but majorly stuck on this task.  I don't have any programming experience      Very much appreciate the help!!   

Tony.

[Jan Axelson]

1. Download and install Visual Basic Express.

http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/en-us/products/2010-editions/visual-basic-express

2. Find a VB tutorial you like and learn the basics of programming with VB.

3. Download and install inpout32.dll and download and extract Test_inpout32_vbdotnet.zip.

http://www.janaxelson.com/parport.htm#Programming

My program just writes bytes, so you'll need to modify it to toggle individual bits, but if you truly have no programming experience, the first two steps will keep you busy for a while. 

Jan

[byte2much]

Jan,

Thanks for the info and direction.  Will definitely look into VB and play.

Tony.

[byte2much]

Jan,

I've spent a few days trying to figure out how to install and use Parallel port control programs found on the Internet.  Basically I can't find one that works on my WinXP laptop.      When looking at these files they have inpout32.dll or ios.dll  Like I stated earlier, I know nothing about programming.  Here's my question.  If a particullar program comes with a .dll file do I place this file somewhere special?  Or does it stay with the executable file in a folder.  Also, I tried one program on a laptop running Win2K and it works like it suppose to.  Do you have any suggestions on how I can make these Parallel Port control programs work on a Laptop running WinXP Pro?  All I really need right now is a program with eight buttons corresponding to each data out pins.  By clicking on each button toggles the bit High.  End product will be control of the rotation of a motor on my Astronomy observatory.

Thanks for the help,
Tony

[Jan Axelson]

Ideally the documentation will tell you where to store it or an installation program will do it for you. With the executable is usually OK. Many DLLs are in /windows/system32.

inpout32.dll works on XP.

Jan