Customer Reviews

Programming the Parallel Port: Interfacing the PC for Data Acquisition and Process Control

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Don't let the first title word 'Programming' mislead you that this book is only for Programmers! The software diskette accompanying this book only enhances the overall viability of Mr. Gadres' remote data acquisition techniques. The sub-title 'Interfacing the PC for Data Acquisition and Process Control' is a broad claim. His experiments more than backup the claim.

Generally speaking, one would have to research many books in order to centralize the concept of say, reading the temperature of a device, and displaying while storing the value on a PC laptop.

This book starts out with fundamental logic gates for the Novice and smoothly moves ahead into deeper water. An in-depth section on the Enhanced Parallel Port and its' attributes was very educational for me. It is when Mr. Gadre puts his practical A/D circuits to full use, that one can appreciate the work done here. The included software helped me jump right into the operation stage. My favorite part of the book was the idea of utilizing a separate Micro Processor chip to continually perform all of the real time scanning, and using the parallel port to 'catch' the last pre-processed data. This removes a lot of PC overhead and prevents data synchronization loss. I will probably use this method for my home PLC.

All program source codes in 'C' are included with the book. Although Linux was his OS choice, I used my Visual C without any major problems.

Overall, this is an excellent mixture of software and hardware. I recommend this book for any person planning to work in the Embedded Controller Industry. The concepts are solid and are good reference materials.

This book is full of practical examples in C for interfacing hardware with the printer port. Examples: a speech digitizer, parallel break out box, photometer, data acquisition system, an EPROM emulator, programming an AT89C2051, a waveform generator, and even a Linux data acquisition system with a web-based display!

This very up-to-date handbook reveals little-known secrets of PC hardware and the software needed to control the outside world with a PC. Suitable background in electronics is given for the book to be used as a textbook, yet the approach is that of a helpful cookbook. Going beyond the PC, the important topic of microcontrollers is addressed. Best of all, important problems in data measurement using PCs can be addressed with very inexpensive hardware easily built (a complete novice might need a Radio Shack style guide to how to do soldering). Software is included in source code form on disk, an added bonus. Reading this book won't get you an EE degree but it might be the next best thing.

This book gives a complete description of the parallel port and its protocols. It also has lots of cool circuits for data acquisition. Within hours of receiving this book, I had written a program to communicate with the parallel port on my Windows 98 box. However, my project needs to run on Windows NT, and NT does not allow you to write directly to IO ports like this book assumes you can. The book gives no help for accessing the parallel port in NT, so I am subtracting 1 star. Linux also does not allow direct access to the parallel port, but this book does cover programming in Linux. Also, the author uses Turbo C for most of his examples, you may need to make some changes to use a different compiler.

Relatively complete treatment of the basic Centronics and Bi-directional modes. About 5 pages devoted to EPP and ECP--nothing about protocols or support from any (modern) operating system. All examples use Bios calls which are unavailable after DOS. Looks like a re-tread of a much earlier work. Hardware-software examples are fine, but utilize many parts which have been out-of date for years. A real disapointment..I sent it back!

Dr. Gadre gives a very useful approach to using the parallel port as a general-purpose data acquisition bus. Another review of this book mentioned that it was light on ECP & EPP coverage. While yes, the chapter devoted to this is short, the material presented in that chapter is used later in the book in specific examples. Also, coverage is not limited to the DOS/BIOS environment, there is a chapter on using the parallel port under Linux. While some of the material is a little bit dated ("newer" Linux kernels according to the text are those from 1.2 on) this must be moderated by the understanding that the book was published in 1998 and undoubtedly written to a large extent in the years prior. In fact, a great deal of data acquisition even today still takes place within DOS, so any DOS-related information is still very useful, and the electronic circuits presented are virtually timeless. I didn't notice in particular any parts listed which weren't available, and most would probably be best emulated in a PLD today anyway.

My main problem with the book is the number of typos I've found so far, which is why I've withheld a star.

I really enjoyed D.V. Gadre's book. It is well laid out and follows a progressive educational type style. It starts you off explaining some of the basics so that even if you aren't an engineer you can follow what he is doing and see where he is going. The next step is to build an actual working simple parallel interface for which he has already created the basic software. Next you progress into larger and faster projects in a logical progression to each successive step.

D. V. Also documents the programs in C very well so that non-programmers can follow how each process of sending, receiving or processing data occurs. Plus his book is one of the few that actually details exactly how the parallel port and each of its pins is addressed. If you are a novice or a student this book is a must have for you personnel library.

The information, programs and circuits in this book will save you hundreds of hours which makes this book a really great value.

This is a book written by a person that clearly understands his job. It is also fairly complete in its scope (the use of paralell port in data acquisition and control) and simple to follow. Almost immediately you get suggestions to fullfill your needs. It is an ideal book in two situations, I think: if you are begining a project and have not a lot of experience or if you are just studying. Nobody will loose having this book.

Being my first experience in designing and working with PC interface devices I found this book to be a fabulous starting point. Dr Gadre displays a great understanding of the hardware and software development issues involved which explains why the book has been able to integrate the two so well in not-so-difficult terms.

In later editions though I think there should be more elaboration on the example projects developed by the author. Also it could be helpful if more comments were documented on the program listings to serve the purpose of the novice programmer.

This book with its very clear exposition on the basics of using parallel port as a data acquisition and control structure makes it very easy to develop numerous applications for the PC environment easily. The book's clear explanations make it very easy to go from a primitive state to a fairly advanced state, quickly and unambigously. Although a notable gap seems to be the details of the newer parallel port modes such as ECP and operating system and application level programming for the same, the book is very useful from the point of view of using the parallel port for data gathering and analysis. I would recommend this book as almost mandatory reading for someone wishing to use the parallel port on the PC.