Qbasic control of parallel port in Windows 2000

  • Thread starter Thread starter Michael Walton
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Michael Walton

Presently using an HP Vectra VLi8 machine and cannot get
the out command to operate the parallel port. I know it
works in windows 2000 on several other computers but not
on any of the 60 of these machines that I have.
 
Shouldn't work at ALL on ANY W2K machine.

Direct parallel port access is perceived as a security violation
on the hardware level and is thusly disallowed.

Google for "parallel port" and "windows 2000" and "direct
access". That's how I found a utility for Visual Basic that
DOES allow this, won't work for you in QB tho'. You need another.
 
Michael Walton said:
Presently using an HP Vectra VLi8 machine and cannot get
the out command to operate the parallel port. I know it
works in windows 2000 on several other computers but not
on any of the 60 of these machines that I have.
Click to expand...

QBasic cannot control the parallel port when running under Windows NT,
2000, or XP because these versions of Windows protect access to
hardware ports. Even VB doesn't have built-in access to hardware
ports.

You might try our software Liberty BASIC, which is Windows BASIC
similar to QBasic in many respects and includes support for hardware
ports using the same INP() and OUT commands that QBasic uses.

-Carl Gundel, author of Liberty BASIC
http://www.libertybasic.com
 
Presently using an HP Vectra VLi8 machine and cannot get
the out command to operate the parallel port. I know it
works in windows 2000 on several other computers but not
on any of the 60 of these machines that I have.
Click to expand...

There is a good explanation of the reason for that, along with one
possible workaround useful for demonstration purposes at
<http://www.beyondlogic.org/porttalk/porttalk.htm>
but for day-to-day use, finding something besides qbasic that has the
capabilities you need would be more practical. Instead of trying to
talk directly to hardware, in newer versions of Windows you call
operating system functions that perform the same work for you AND make
sure that multiple users or programs don't try to access the same
piece of hardware at the same time. That's just what you've been
doing with hard drive access for years. Still curious? More at
<http://www.google.com/search?q=parallel+port+access+"ring+0"+windows>
 
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