My father would like to use Ubuntu for LPT programming (via a relay card). He is used to QBasic and PowerBasic but willing to learn a new (simple) language for his goals.
What recommendations can you give me for this task?
Python would be my favourite if the module pyParallel worked. If there are other modules available for Python, let me know.
I cannot change the hardware, it's a requirement to only change software.
Thanks in advance for any hints!
http://www.mono-project.com/Visual%5FBasic He'll at least be familiar with the language, but accessing the parallel port is a more complicated task. I know there is a way, but all the samples online deal with windows libraries.
The Python is not easier than Basic. But I think for parallel port and other hardware programming C is a natural choice. It's not that hard to learn and it's worth to spend some time learning C.
An alternative might be Arduino, it has it's own IDE and can interface with tons of languages as well as run on all platforms. It's more of a hobbyists thing but might work out for you.
The Python module pyParallel works. I had tried the release last time. Yesterday I used the HEAD revision and it works.
For somebody trying to do the same procedure:
lp and load ppdev. It lets you access the parallel port device file.lp so it has write access to /dev/parport*.# chmod a+rw /dev/parport*Steps 2., 3. b) and 4. must repeated every reboot. The blacklisting does not work properly (yet).
You can create a udev rule for the parport device file so that every user has write access to it.
Update: The blacklist now works. It was a bug in Ubuntu 9.04 with CUPS. In 9.10 it works perfectly.
Happy hacking!