Hi Rodrigo

I agree with you about converting the parallel data to serial and reading
it into the pc that way. You won't need to write pc software for this; you
should be able to use a terminal program to capture the data.

There are parallel to serial converters on the market - or at least there
used to be. That might be the fastest way to solve your problem.

If not, it should not be very difficult to wire up a pic to do the job.
There is *plenty* of information on the net about the centronics parallel
port.

I am assuming that your equipment that generates the data uses handshaking
signals to avoid over-running the printer.  If so, you let the pic toggle
these to control the flow of data. Latch a byte, send it to the uart (or
bit-bang if you like) and continue.  It takes more time to describe than to
actually do it.

Good luck!
Tom M.


At 10:15 AM 8/24/02 -0300, you wrote:
>Hi,
>
>I have a laboratory equipment that performs some chemical data
>analysis and emits a printed report. The printer port is the only
>output interface to the world.
>
>The problem is that I would like to capture the data with a computer.
>I tried, ingenuously, to make a polling software to read the data, of
>course it failed loosing some characters. Even though I have taken
>care of the handshaking, I guess the problem is with the STROBE short
>duration.
>
>I have searched the Internet for a simple solution, but I still did
>not found, everybody that had the same problem solved in some other
>way.
>
>I have found LPTCAP
>(http://home.clear.net.nz/pages/kheidens/lptcap/lptcap.htm), which
>seems to do the job, but I would like to know your opinion about what
>would be the best choice.
>
>I think that maybe the simplest thing to do is to convert the parallel
>signal to serial, and read it nicely through the serial port. But I don't
>know exactly how can I convert the parallel signal sent to a printer
>to a serial one.
>

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