Re: writing a parallel port driver to support external hardware
Mike Kilburn (duxmike@iafrica.com)
Wed, 24 Apr 1996 19:27:23 +0200
>
> Hello, all.
>
> Some people here are in the process of building a small robot, and have
> decided to use a parallel port interface because the hardware's
> easier that way. The tricky part is that now they want to make it
> controllable from a Linux machine, and I think that means writing
> a parallel port device driver. I've never written a device driver
> and I barely know more than they do, so I wanted to ask:
> - *Do* I need a device driver, or is there a `tip' like
> program for the parallel port I can hack into?
> - Should I start from scratch, or grab a printer driver
> from somewhere? (where?)
> - Any books / howtos / faqs you can recommend?
Take a look at the POSIX.4 book from O`Reilly. The kernel device driver
part (if needed) will be the least of your problems. Real time apps. under
Linux need special consideration. The book covers the user mode issues and I
think new kernels support much of the stuff (But no async I/O).