access the parallel port

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GameLab(Posted 2003) [#1]
Hi everyone. For a project at college, I need Blitz to be able to access the parallel port for both input and output operations. I know Blitz can't access the port directly but I was wondering if there were any DLL's or something available anywhere that I could call from Blitz which will allow access.

I would be very grateful if anyone can tell me where I could find something along these lines, and how to use it if possible.

Thanks in advance for any help.


BlitzSupport(Posted 2003) [#2]
Using OpenFile on LPT1: or whatever has been known to work (WriteByte, etc, placing output to a printer). Direct port access is tricky: under Win9x I believe you'll have to look up the port address in the registry, whereas under NT/2000/XP you actually need a device driver to read/write directly to hardware!

There's a slightly illiterate discussion here that seems to cover it...

http://www.experts-exchange.com/Programming/Programming_Languages/C/Q_20401226.html

You'll probably need a C/C++ DLL to be able to write directly to the port too. I recommend trying the LPTx: method first!


DJ. n-ICE(Posted 2003) [#3]
You need this:
http://www.btinternet.com/~nigelibrown/portio/download/portio.zip