accessing LPT for sending raw data

[boakest]

I am currently trying to integrate a custom hardware system with a basic parallel interface and need to be able to send raw data to the PCs parallel port directly i.e. without using a printer driver.<br><br>Is there a way in which I can either access base memory locations in order to access the LPT hardware registers?<br><br>Alternatively does anyone know of a very basic printer driver with little or no handshaking protocol?<br><br>Any help will be a great help..

 

[dpaulson]

I used this with quickbasic. I tried with vb6 and it still works.<br>printer = freefile<br>open &quot;lpt1:&quot; for output as #printer 'you can use lpt2 etc.<br>print #printer, &quot;Data sent to the printer&quot;<br>close #printer<br>

 

[ColinC]

VB 5 has a printer object. I've used it to print graphs from a custom control. <p>Colin Chevrier<br><a href=mailto:colin.chevrier@ca.jdsunph.com>colin.chevrier@ca.jdsunph.com</a><br><a href= > </a><br>

 

[ciaranr]

My problem was similar to yours except that I wanted to send raw data to a dot matrix printer on a network. Whilst setting up a printer as a dot matrix 9pin was an option a simple work around is to determine the network printers location using printer.port (will show \\blahh\blah) etc and then net use this location to LPT6:, say. Write your raw data to simple text file on your hard drive then type this text file to the net used printer using a simple batch file.<br>Simple, no hardware gooping and works nicely with the spooler.<br><br>Have fun <p>ciaran<br><a href=mailto:ciaranr@albany.jrc.net.au>ciaranr@albany.jrc.net.au</a><br><a href= > </a><br>