Hi All,

I need to reverse engineer the communication protocol used
by a LPT connected scanner (the firm refuses to release
the documentation necessary for writing a Linux driver :-( ).
Therefore I need to build a SPP/EPP/ECP monitor, to be connected
paralelly with the scanner, which will send the acquired data to the
another PC (via USB or EPP)
I think that it can be done with (maybe slightly overclocked) PIC
(16F877 or 16C745 with USB?).

I'd be glad to hear some suggestions:
1) Is it possible to overclock 16F877 2 times? Has anybody the experiences
   with such configuration?
2) Is it possible to build a SIMPLE circuit detecting the "transmitting"
   and "receiving" side of the LPT link? (Yes I know that it should be
   possible to determine it from the control lines, but I suspect that
   the protocol may be slightly different from the IEEE1284 specs).
3) Maybe someone know about a PIC/other projects which could be adapted
   for that purpose. (I even considered writing the VHDL code for
   implementation of such monitor on FPGA...)
--

                                TIA & Regards,
                                Wojciech Zabolotny
                                wzab@ise.pw.edu.pl

--
http://www.piclist.com hint: PICList Posts must start with ONE topic:
[PIC]:,[SX]:,[AVR]: ->uP ONLY! [EE]:,[OT]: ->Other [BUY]:,[AD]: ->Ads