Software using the PC parallel port

Last Updated Feb 25th 2002

The first project is the SANOS ALL-PURPOSE PROGRAMMER. The aim is to use this software to program everything (microcontrollers, memories (Flash, EEPROM) etc) using the parallel port and a hardware interface. All you will have to do will be to write DLLs according to a specific standard and the programmer interface will do the rest.
I have rewritten my 3 Atmel programmers (Low-Voltage serial, Hi-Voltage serial and Parallel) according to these specs.
I hope you will find the project interesting enough to use it in order to program all the devices existing today.

I am reminding to all interested people that this project is built, maintained and updated BEFORE or AFTER work hours. This is why the delays are sometimes bigger than I would. However I do my best to keep updates at reasonable intervals.

The programmer interface is 100% done (until new features will require its change). It works as an executable (multi-language) making standardized calls to the selected plugin, who calls a DLL implementing basic functions (timers, plug-in recognition, etc) and also calls a parallel port access service (NT/2000) or Virtual Device Driver (Win95/98/Me) written by Alexander Waltzman.

The interface works with plug-ins, thus making the interface completely independent of the hardware implementation. A complete description of how the plugins should be written is available in the documentation.

Three plugins were written this far, implementing programming for:

- Atmel AVRs (Low-voltage serial programming);

- Atmel AVRs (Hi-Voltage Serial programming - this one was a bitch);

- Atmel AVRs (Hi-Voltage parallel programming);

The first wish is to change the interface completely, in order to make the access to the hardware integrated into the Windows environment, like the software that comes with the card (Smartmedia, etc) readers:

Insert the programming interface and a special service will make available one, two or several drives with direct R/W access to the device (memory, MCU, etc). The device is identified with an unique code, and all plugins will have to have a supplementary function which will show which plugin works with which interface. The service will scan all plugins to see if it finds one that works with the programming interface inserted into the parallel port, and if it finds one, it will ask that particular plugin how many drives it should create and also their dimensions, based on the device inserted into the programming interface.

I thought to create a limited number of drives, e.g. for an AVR three would be required:

- one for the Flash area;

- one for the EEprom area (if the AVR has an EEprom area);

- one for the lock and fuse bits;

I also think an important change to plugins call should be made in order to eliminate string variables and to use instead PChar variables, thus C developers will be able to write plugins in C that will work with the programming interface and they will not be required to use only Delphi.

In order to implement this interesting features, I still need information about how to write the following (in Delphi):

- services (I have basic info on this);

- how to create and destroy drives using Windows API;

Should you have this info and/or links to pertaining materials, feel free to write me.

Anyway I will keep available the two versions, the one with an executable and the one with services, thus making everyone happy.

If you are a new surfer and wish to download this software, please click here to send me an email so I can email you back about the latest updates. Thanks.