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Linus Torvalds1da177e2005-04-16 15:20:36 -07001
2 Parallel link cable for Texas Instruments handhelds
3 ===================================================
4
5
6Author: Romain Lievin
7Homepage: http://lpg.ticalc.org/prj_tidev/index.html
8
9
10INTRODUCTION:
11
12This is a driver for the very common home-made parallel link cable, a cable
13designed for connecting TI8x/9x graphing calculators (handhelds) to a computer
14or workstation (Alpha, Sparc). Given that driver is built on parport, the
15parallel port abstraction layer, this driver is architecture-independent.
16
17It can also be used with another device plugged on the same port (such as a
18ZIP drive). I have a 100MB ZIP and both of them work fine!
19
20If you need more information, please visit the 'TI drivers' homepage at the URL
21above.
22
23WHAT YOU NEED:
24
25A TI calculator and a program capable of communicating with your calculator.
26
27TiLP will work for sure (since I am its developer!). yal92 may be able to use
28it by changing tidev for tipar (may require some hacking...).
29
30HOW TO USE IT:
31
32You must have first compiled parport support (CONFIG_PARPORT_DEV): either
33compiled in your kernel, either as a module.
34
35Next, (as root):
36
37 modprobe parport
38 modprobe tipar
39
40If it is not already there (it usually is), create the device:
41
42 mknod /dev/tipar0 c 115 0
43 mknod /dev/tipar1 c 115 1
44 mknod /dev/tipar2 c 115 2
45
46You will have to set permissions on this device to allow you to read/write
47from it:
48
49 chmod 666 /dev/tipar[0..2]
50
51Now you are ready to run a linking program such as TiLP. Be sure to configure
52it properly (RTFM).
53
54MODULE PARAMETERS:
55
56 You can set these with: modprobe tipar NAME=VALUE
57 There is currently no way to set these on a per-cable basis.
58
59 NAME: timeout
60 TYPE: integer
61 DEFAULT: 15
62 DESC: Timeout value in tenth of seconds. If no data is available once this
63 time has expired then the driver will return with a timeout error.
64
65 NAME: delay
66 TYPE: integer
67 DEFAULT: 10
68 DESC: Inter-bit delay in micro-seconds. A lower value gives an higher data
69 rate but makes transmission less reliable.
70
71These parameters can be changed at run time by any program via ioctl(2) calls
72as listed in ./include/linux/ticable.h.
73
74Rather than write 50 pages describing the ioctl() and so on, it is
75perhaps more useful you look at ticables library (dev_link.c) that demonstrates
76how to use them, and demonstrates the features of the driver. This is
77probably a lot more useful to people interested in writing applications
78that will be using this driver.
79
80QUIRKS/BUGS:
81
82None.
83
84HOW TO CONTACT US:
85
86You can email me at roms@lpg.ticalc.org. Please prefix the subject line
87with "TIPAR: " so that I am certain to notice your message.
88You can also mail JB at jb@jblache.org. He packaged these drivers for Debian.
89
90CREDITS:
91
92The code is based on tidev.c & parport.c.
93The driver has been developed independently of Texas Instruments.