From: tgk@cs.toronto.edu (Todd Kelley)
Subject: Re: PC parallel I (!= I/O)
Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto
Lines: 36

erickson@azure.nmt.edu (Alan Erickson) writes:

> 	I'm trying to bring in 8+ bits to a PC, and would like
> 	to use interrupt-driven routines. Without buying an IO
> 	board or making a new port, _where_ can I bring in these
> 	bits? LPT seems to have only a few inputs, but I've heard
> 	rumours that some LPTs have bidirectional lines. Anybody
> 	know fer sure? If any bi-d LPTs, which boards have them
> 	(I'll be running a new 386DX-33)?

I know for sure that the Everex Magic I/O EV-170A can be jumpered
for a printer mode, or for a general purpose bidirectional I/O mode.

Also, I know for sure that the IBM Technical Reference says the following
about the Monochrome Display & Printer Adapter and the IBM Parallel Printer
Adapter:

    It is essential that the external device not try to pull these
    lines [referring to the data lines] to ground.

And later:

    If an external device should be driving data on these pins (in
    violation of usage ground rules) at the time of an input, this
    data will be `or'ed with the latch contents.

I will accept no responsibility if you incur damages of any kind
as a result of my saying, ``I DO NOT know for sure, but I think
you should be able to use a traditional parallel port as an input
port by writing 0x to the data lines, and then reading from the
data lines, while an external device drives them.''  The input
data will not be latched, so noise could make this infeasible.

Todd