Hi all,
not sure if it can be thought better as a software
or hardware topic, however...

I'm attempting bi directional communication with a
printer with no success (what that means ? Simple, I
send the printer some command which implies a reply,
that's really low level, technical stuff, don't care
of it... ;)

I firstly tried with an UPAR: assign created with
the port-handler, either connecting the printer to
the parallel port (via parallel.device) then connecting
it to USB (via usbparallel.device). No reply, wait
forever.

Then I went the low level way using the device
read and write commands: with the parallel port
the read command returns -3 (unsupported command).
Oh well... so I searched the web and found that
Pegasos parallel port is stuck to uni directional
mode. Is that true ? Well, at least 2+2 makes 4
(a sad 4, I would say).

Doing the same with the printer connected to USB
and using the usbparallel.device, the read command
never returns. I assume my communication protocol
is correct (even if taken by reverse engineer a
PC port sniffing...). Should I think that
usbparallel.device is some way broken too ??
I need know that, because atm I can't figure out
until which point it's me and until which it's the
hardware/OS failing.

(My config is PegII with MOS 1.4.5)

Thanks for any in-topic hint and answer!
/&

You should try to get in touch with Sonic. AFAIR he played a bit with Pegasos parallel port and even made his own device for it that was supposed to be better that the standard parallel.device. port-handler does not support reading at all (well, this will be fixed in the future). No idea about usbparallel.device. Maybe you should try to contact Platon about it.

March,
>You should try to get in touch with Sonic. AFAIR he
>played a bit with Pegasos parallel port and even made
>his own device for it that was supposed to be better
>that the standard parallel.device.

Already contacted, still no reply. I assume he's busy or
outdoor.

>port-handler does not support reading at all (well, this
>will be fixed in the future).

I also tried the port-handler (68K) by Stephan Rupprecht
which was supposed to work well but the behavior is
identical

>No idea about usbparallel.device. Maybe you should try
>to contact Platon about it.

Ehr... yes, surely... even if I preferred he had ended
up in this thread sooner or later :o)

/&

Afair MorphOS' parallel.device only implements enough for common printers to work and nothing related to bi-directional communication.

Reviving the topic...
I managed to get hold of old but good LaserJet 4 Plus. It has a parallel port and can provide status to the computer. So far i've got a testbed...