Accessing Parallel Port Control and Status Registers with VISA and Win7x64

[rocket_author]

Hello all,

I've posted this in the I/O forum for VISA, but this main forum seems to get a lot more traffic so I'm posting here too.

Wondering if anyone has a solution for accessing the Control and Status registers on a parallel port with VISA, now that Win7 has locked down the I/O ports and In Port.vi and Out Port.vi don't work anymore.  I've been looking all over for a solution and haven't found anything that will help; either the VISA solution is shown but doesn't mention if the Status and Control registers are accessible, or the solution is for a 32 bit system.

The one thing I found was under Instrument I/O>VISA>VISA Advanced, there is a group of functions called Register Access; but, when I investigate that, it seems to need an address that the detailed help describes as "VXI, VME, and GPIB-VXI" or "PXI" with no mention of Parallel Port usage, so I'm pretty much at the end of what I can figure out.

Basically what I need to do is use the data lines to send info, and watch the status lines for incoming discrete signals.  Since parallel ports are half duplex, I can't have the data lines be both inputs and outputs simultaneously, which is what I need.  A cheap D I/O card would be the easiest solution, but to make a long story short I'm dealing with a legacy system and that's something my higher-ups want to avoid.

Any help is greatly appreciated!

[lionel_t_123]

I have the same issue. If someone could help it would be nice.

Regards

[rocket_author]

Hello,

I was able to solve this problem using software from Entech Taiwan; it's called TVicPort and it's available for free for personal use, and very cheaply for commercial license.  If you have questions let me know, I'll do my best to answer them but investigate Entech's solution and see if it'll work for you:

http://www.entechtaiwan.com/

http://www.entechtaiwan.com/dev/port/index.shtm

[Jack5588]

Hello,

I downloaded the app "TVicPortPersonal". It looks good but I couldn't get it to compile.  I am using "Microsof Visual Studio 2010".  I was wondering if you were able to create a win7 DLL that you be willing to share.