Parallel port programming for a Sun Ultra 5 running Solaris 8

Question

Hi I'm trying to look for information about reading/writing to the parallel port of a Sun Ultra 5 running Solaris 8. I'd just like to see some basic programs written in C, nothing fancy, just reading and wrting to the port, getting the port address etc. toggling the lines.
I've tried searching for this information and there is plenty of information about PC parallel port programming with windows or Linux. But there seems to be little for Sun's
I've tried doing 'man ecpp' but that doesn't really give any clear example. What I need is an idiots guide.
I've tried searching this Forum and I see that other people have asked the same question before but no one has replied to them. Why is this?
Thanks if you can help.
fishman.

Answer 1

The key is gettting the port into diag mode. Here's a quickly little example that turns all the data pins on and then turns them off:
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/conf.h>
#include <sys/stat.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <stropts.h>
#include <fcntl.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <sys/ecppio.h>
int fd = 0;
// ecpp structures
ecpp_transfer_parms etp;
ecpp_regs eregs;
// returns -1 if error otherwise returns fd
int openoutput()
fd = open("/dev/ecpp0",O_RDWR);
if (fd==-1) { return -1; }
// default is 90
etp.write_timeout = 10;
// the big secret
etp.mode = ECPP_DIAG_MODE;
ioctl(fd,ECPPIOC_SETPARMS,&etp);
return fd;
unsigned char in()
unsigned char data;
// from the man pages
ioctl(fd,ECPPIOC_GETREGS,&eregs);
data = eregs.dsr;
return data;
void out( unsigned char data )
write(fd,&data,1);
int main( void )
int dummy;
openoutput();
//all data pins on
out( 255 );
scanf("%d", &dummy);
//all data pins off
out( 0 );
scanf("%d", &dummy);
close( fd );
return 0;
}