Hi,
I'm new to this list and in the description of the list I read that this list
deals with device drivers. This is not really a driver question, so I hope
it is acceptable.
At home, I'm building an MP3 player. I bought an 20x4 LCD display and
connect it through the parallel port. I wrote some code to control the
display. All worked fine on my previous computer. Recently though I bought
a Bookpc (www.pcchips.nl) and I tried to use the LCD through its parallel
port and this is were my problem is situated.
For my previous PC, I had to configure the BIOS for EPPECP version 1.7. The
BIOS of my bookpc doesn't support that version change. I suppose it only
supports version 1.9. I don't understand why I had to configure my previous
computer to EPPECP, because as far as I know I don't use any features of
EPP/ECP. For the LCD display I simply have to put data on the data lines and
then I have to set the Enable line on the LCD to high and later to low again
(this acts as a strobe). This is all the functionality I'm using, so I think
I don't need EPP/ECP.
When I boot my bookpc, the parallel port driver says that my parallel port
(at 0x378) supports the following modes : SPP, EPP, ECP, ECPEPP, ECPPS2
I can restrict this when I change the parallel port settings in the BIOS.
I tried all possible modes in BIOS and my LCD still doesn't show anything.
When I write something to address 0x378 I can see through a cable tester that
it actually goes through the port. But nothing happens on the LCD.
I read somewhere that it is important to set the mode of the parallel port
before using it. So I tried to set the ECR (at address 0x378+0x402) to 0x1F,
which should be Standard Mode. But when I read the ECR afterwards, I get the
value 0xFF, so it seems that the ECR is not changed. (By The Way, to do this
I had to ask permissions to the Linux kernel through the iopl() call.)
I don't know which parallel port chip I'm using. I asked the manufacturer
for more detailed specs of the motherboard, but I have not yet received
anything. So I don't know if for example the ECR is always located at
Base_Address + 0x402.
To recapitulate : I'm clueless. I don't know what to test anymore. Maybe
I'm missing a crucial detail somewhere ... Has anyone of you guys more
experience in this matter ?
And maybe another question : since I write directly to the address of the
parallel port, do I actually need the parport_pc driver to be loaded ? If so,
why ?
Sorry for this rather long mail.
Best regards,
Bart De Win.
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