Hi,

I have a further question to add to the discussion re interfacing PIC
microcontrollers with the parallel printer port of a PC.

Suppose I have a PIC controller that I want to interface to a parallel port
of a PC, the type of which is unknown, i.e. it could be a 'standard' (the
oldest), ECP or EPP printer port.  I'd like the PIC processor to be able to
communicate with all 3 variations of printer ports, to take advantage of
the fastest possible bi-directional data transfer rate available on any
given PC.

Q: Is it possible for a combination of software running on the PC and on
the PIC to automatically determine what type of printer port is available
and have both the PIC and the software(running on both the PC and the PIC)
self-configure to take advantage of the fastest transfer rate?  By
self-configure, I mean that for a given printer port type, the appropriate
communications protocol would be adopted for bi-directional transfer of
data and that the required I/O pins of the PIC would be assigned the
corresponding data/handshaking signals.

I think that if you can answer the above question, you will have covered
the majority of questions that PIC users might have concerning interfacing
PICs with the PC's parallel printer port.

Let the discussion begin!

Regards,
Gary Pepper
gpepper@capitalnet.com