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Re: Controlling a Printer Port from Director?

From: Jeff Mann   jefmansympatico.ca
Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2000 19:10:24 -0700

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Jim Ruxton wrote:
> You might want to take a look at this. It's kind of like the Gland concept and
> there are Director drivers available for download. http://www.ezio.com/ It is
> controlled over the serial port ie. not parallel. I haven't looked for parallel
> port Director Xtras. The actual device is just a PIC I believe. Don't know if
> this helps. Have fun this summer!
> Jim

Yeah, the ezio is pretty much what I was suggesting - it's basically
just a PIC 16C74 on a printed circuit board, with a voltage regulator,
crystal, RS232 level converter, and connectors. The 16C74 is the same as
the 16F874 except it's not reprogrammable and it's 8-bit A-to-D instead
of 10-bit. Their software is just a simple script, it doesn't need an
Xtra driver.

The only problem is that with shipping, exchange, and taxes, it's going
to cost you nearly $300 by the time you get it to Canada. Not that it's
overpriced really, when you think about it - printed circuit boards are
expensive, and the ezio is assembled and tested, with manual, tech
support, and so on. But you can get exactly the same functionality with
a $15 '874 on a breadboard and $5-$10 for a crystal and connectors. Not
to mention that you can easily reprogram the '874 or rewire a breadboard
to do other things.

Ok, who wants to write a PIC program using the ezio protocol? Then we
can swipe their Max and Director scripts!

<Jeff
-- 
Jeff Mann - Information Consumer ___O___O__= -- >
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