Any hardware requirements for writing PnP driver?

A

Ali

Hi All,
I have designed a board with Atmel chip which provides an I/O
interfaces for parallel port.
I want to upgrade its driver to make it plug and play , I want to start
my win32 application automatically when ever my board is attached with
DB25 [port of PC].
The question is do i have to upgrade my hardware too for writing a PnP
driver? I mean it is working fine with NT Driver [Non PnP].
1) Do i have to upgrade my hardware in sense of interrupt generation
because i'm not sure how kernel will discover that now PowerCell [my
device] is connected to DB-25 port instead of ordinary printer? and its
time to load my WDM driver and vice versa when removed.
2) I want to know how PC parallel port [DB-25] is connected internally
, Is it connected to ISA or PCI bus? Actually I have designed a small
device with Atmel chip and now I want to write its plug and play driver
for windows but this question is halting my coding phase.
My education web page: http://powercell.cjb.net/
I appreciate your time!
Cheers.
 
C

CJT

Ali said:
Hi All,
I have designed a board with Atmel chip which provides an I/O
interfaces for parallel port.
I want to upgrade its driver to make it plug and play , I want to start
my win32 application automatically when ever my board is attached with
DB25 [port of PC].
The question is do i have to upgrade my hardware too for writing a PnP
driver? I mean it is working fine with NT Driver [Non PnP].
1) Do i have to upgrade my hardware in sense of interrupt generation
because i'm not sure how kernel will discover that now PowerCell [my
device] is connected to DB-25 port instead of ordinary printer? and its
time to load my WDM driver and vice versa when removed.
2) I want to know how PC parallel port [DB-25] is connected internally
, Is it connected to ISA or PCI bus? Actually I have designed a small
device with Atmel chip and now I want to write its plug and play driver
for windows but this question is halting my coding phase.
My education web page: http://powercell.cjb.net/
I appreciate your time!
Cheers.
Yes, the hardware needs firmware to identify it. Look at the bios on
a RAID card (or other card of your choice) for an example.
 
C

Colon Terminus

Ali said:
Hi All,
I have designed a board with Atmel chip which provides an I/O
interfaces for parallel port.
I want to upgrade its driver to make it plug and play , I want to start
my win32 application automatically when ever my board is attached with
DB25 [port of PC].
The question is do i have to upgrade my hardware too for writing a PnP
driver? I mean it is working fine with NT Driver [Non PnP].
1) Do i have to upgrade my hardware in sense of interrupt generation
because i'm not sure how kernel will discover that now PowerCell [my
device] is connected to DB-25 port instead of ordinary printer? and its
time to load my WDM driver and vice versa when removed.
2) I want to know how PC parallel port [DB-25] is connected internally
, Is it connected to ISA or PCI bus? Actually I have designed a small
device with Atmel chip and now I want to write its plug and play driver
for windows but this question is halting my coding phase.
My education web page: http://powercell.cjb.net/
I appreciate your time!
Cheers.

You need to reengineer your device. Most PCs manufactured in the last cuppla
years do not even have Parallel ports on board. You need to design towards
USB. Your device is a guaranteed failure if you insist on using the legacy
Parallel interface.
 
A

Ali

Addition to CJT post:
So you mean that harware should generate certain interrupt when ever
connected to PC so that PnP driver recognize's it with that interrupt
and start win32 application.Am i right?
Addition to Colon post:
Yeah Colon you are right in these days parallel port is becoming
obslete and i think i would also upgrade it to USB in near future.

But a part of my question is still there, Is parallel port connected to
ISA or PCI bus?

Thanks
 
M

Marky

Ali said:
Addition to CJT post:
So you mean that harware should generate certain interrupt when ever
connected to PC so that PnP driver recognize's it with that interrupt
and start win32 application.Am i right?
Addition to Colon post:
Yeah Colon you are right in these days parallel port is becoming
obslete and i think i would also upgrade it to USB in near future.

But a part of my question is still there, Is parallel port connected to
ISA or PCI bus?

Thanks

I can't remember, but there are many hardware books available currently that
explain the relationship...

I seem to recall that the parallel and serial ports were wired to the main
bus and not the pci or isa bus...but I don't have my trusty hardware book
handy right now...if I remember I'll look it up tomorrow...
 
A

Ali

Hi Marky,
I seem to recall that the parallel and serial ports were wired to the main
bus and not the pci or isa bus...but I don't have my trusty hardware
book
handy right now...if I remember I'll look it up tomorrow...
Yes this is what i want to know, sorry i was away to my
contry side in last few days. I'll appreciate if you can do this for me
.. There isn't any clue in system BIOS for knowing the parallel port
connected bus.
I think parallel port connected to main bus was design of very early
days.

-ali
 
M

Marky

Ali said:
Marky are you around?

Howdy Ali,

Sorry, I have been away from here and did not locate my hardware book...it's
at work and I'll check this out in the next day or so...

Have you tried the system board manufacturer by any chance? Usually they
give schematics of the boards and/or some idea of how the port is connected
or their support team, if available, might know. If you use a PCI parrallel
port card then it is definitely using the PCI bus (or ISA on some
systems)...

I'll mark the thread as unread to remind myself...what type of MoBo is it?
 
A

Ali

Hi mArKy,
Have you tried the system board manufacturer by any chance?
Yeah I've spent time will looking aroung my BIOS but didn't got any
clue there, to me it seems that it is connected to ISA bus and in
systems if ISA bus isn't present then PCI bus take cares of it. One
thing I have come to believe is that it is never connected to main bus
directly;-) Though in early days it was connected through the bunch of
TTLs to MainBus.

Mary do I need to take care of handshacking in plug and play driver?
I'm so confused about it! how windows will know? that PowerCell
Device [http://powercell.cjb.net/] is connected to PC port instead of
any ordinary printer and it is time to kick my Mr. Driver out in
action.

Think about at zero time.
T0 = When Device is not connected
T1 = Device is plugged in.
T2 = Do I have to write a common protocol for device reorganization?
like Device generate unique interrupt or Driver start probing the
parallel port to recognize it.
How you will like it?

Please mark this thread unreadable to unless you post reply.l0l

Cheers,
-ali
 
M

Marky

OK <slaps forehead>

The port is connected to the I/O bus that all other devices plug
into...depending on your system MoBo it will work at the clock speed
indicated on the board...

Not that that should matter...you are trying to do something that I'm not
really familiar with (hardware driver coding) so I can't say that I can help
you with this much...

However, having said that, if the device can be detected you can tell it to
look for the driver on the system (wherever you put it or tell it to
install) and I would imagine that there must be files placed in various
locations so that the system will know what it is and where to look for the
device driver...like the system32 folder for one...
 
A

Ali

where to look for the device driver...like the system32 folder for one...

Nope not only system32 but system32\drivers is the riht place to put
your sys [Driver File] file.

I appreciate tour time, Well my non PnP driver is working fine but
beieve me WDM sucks when it coes to make pul and play driver.
I appreciate your time,
 

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