Parallel Port Interface between PIC and PC

hi there,

my current project involves designing a circular sonar-sensor array to be incorporated onto a mobile robot. the hardware design i had in mind was simple - the sensors would communicate with a PIC via I2C, which would then transmit the readings to the laptop on the robot. i managed to implement the I2C interface between the PIC and the sensors. i now need to establish communication between the PIC and the laptop on the robot. the laptop has two ports, a USB port and a parallel port. i'm pretty sure it's much easier to try to develop a parallel port interface. could somebody guide me through this process? i don't know if this complicates matters, but the laptop on the robot is running a real-time operating system called QNX. if there are any other details i can provide, please let me know.

any help would be appreciated. thanks,

rajiv

Reply to
Rajiv Ghanta
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Reply to
mc

Hi.

Typical.

Again typical.

Unfortunately becoming more typical by the day.

I don't think so. The right way to do this is to interface to the USB using a USB to serial cable. The reason is that serial interfaces and programs are well established. Going the parallel route you'd have to develop software on both ends of the cable.

The other reason this is smart is because you can then test everything on a desktop with a real serial port before committing to the USB to serial cable.

Consider this alternitive before committing to the parallel port.

BAJ

Reply to
Byron A Jeff

snipped-for-privacy@cc.gatech.edu (Byron A Jeff) wrote in news:d6fnfj$ snipped-for-privacy@cleon.cc.gatech.edu:

Even desktops are appearing with no serial ports now, although it is still easy to find cards that will add a serial port or two or more to the desktop.

--
Richard
Reply to
Richard

Parallel port interface are as easy as serial, but it takes too many wires.

USB

and

to

Another option? Create a serial connection via the parallel port. Perhaps something is already available for QNX. I'd imagine QNX gives complete control over time, so you could bitbang if you had too. There are lots of bitbang illustrations for the PIC and the ideas would be the same for the PC side.

Reply to
John

byron,

first off, haha, love how you reduce my weeks of works to 'typical'-ness.

the problem with using serial-to-USB chips (like the ones FTDI makes) is that i could not find any QNX drivers for them (if there are, PLEASE let me know). i found third party QNX drivers for FTDI's parallel-to-USB chip (chip: FT8U245AM, third party drivers:

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using FTDI's virtual COM port driver, transmitting data from the PIC to my windows machine was trivial. but i could not install the third party drivers on the QNX laptop on the robot, so that route was not an option. i am not competent enough to write my own driver.

but for this hang-up i agree with you, serial is the way to go.

any more thoughts or suggestions?

rajiv

Reply to
Rajiv Ghanta

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