Reading with parallel port!

[Samo]

I'm a novice user of LabView. I'm having some problems reading with parallel port. I'll try to describe my problem:
We have a precise Pi instrument for measuring pressure cycles in I.C. Engines. It's rather old, but still functions properly and it's very accurate. But the only output it has besides display is to a plotter C.ITOH CX-4800. And pens for that plotter are hard to find. If I would be able to read what the Pi instrument sends to plotter, I could get the data from those readings.
One option is to buy parallel to serial converter that is quite expensive and slow.
Second option is to read with parallel port (bi-directional, EPP, ECP). I tried to do it with Serial port read.vi, but I was not successful. Are there
any VI�s which make possible to read with parallel port? What a cable should look like (pin connections)?
Thank you in advance for provided help!

Samo

[Jared 323]

In port and Out port will allow you to talk and listen to the parallel port. I don't have experience with this, but since no one else has answered the question, i figured i would. With these vi's (located under port I/O sub-palette of the advanced palette) you give a byte value and an address. Here is a little info that was just in a similar question :

When we say that the parallel port is at base address 0x378, we mean that the byte registers at 0x378, 0x379, and 0x37A are the D, S, and C registers of the parallel port (S = D + 1; C = D + 2). When you read and write to these via the inport and outport vis you bypass a handshaking layer that the function calls to serial port write must use.

Using inport and outport doesn't require that you modify .labviewrc an
d visaconf.ini files, nor does it require grounding of certain pins.


The pinouts for the D, S, and C registers are as follows:
(- sign means that the logic is inverted)
01: -C0
02: D0
03: D1
04: D2
05: D3
06: D4
07: D5
08: D6
09: D7
10: S6
11: -S7
12: S5
13: S4
14: -C1
15: S3
16: C2
17: -C3


18 to 25 are Ground

If you are using NT see the following link for vi's that work on that OS :

http://zone.ni.com/devzone/devzoneweb.nsf/opendoc?openagent&2851D0A06E3185BC8625683A000AC730&cat=034E59A8530E09DF862568900018707A

And lastly, a site about the EPP (encanced parallel port) if you need this info.

http://www.fapo.com/eppmode.htm

Good luck,
Jared