Re: EMC on HP 6730 weird parallel port noise / not working

> From: John Johnson <johnatl@...>
> Hi All,
>
> I have installed BDI EMC from here:
> http://www.isw.uni-stuttgart.de/personen/t_franit/echtzeitlinux/
> download.html on my HP Pavilion 6730 (600MHz Celeron, 128MB, 60+8GB).
> It doesn't work. Specifically, if I turn on my controller (L297/L298
> drivers, stepper motors), the Y axis steps about 1/8 turn about twice a
> second. The other axes won't move. The problem doesn't seem to be
> EMC, it seems to be Linux. When I watch the data lines on the parallel
> port while booting Linux, there are all kinds of signals on the lines.
> Even when it's going through the check list at the beginning of the
> boot (where it says Starting..(whatever)..[OK]). When I boot Windows
> 95, there is no noise on the lines. Also, the parallel port (378) isn't
> reported in the control panel for Linux, but it is in Windows. How
> weird is that?! If anyone has any suggestions, I'm all ears. I'm
> several days into this project, and it's driving me nuts.
>
> Thanks in advance!
>
> Regards,
> JJ

The emc uses it's own parport driver as a part of the real-time module
that is installed during startup. It needs no other. I don't personally
know that these other modules will cause problems but I trust Jon a lot.
You can see some of the performance of a parport while emc is running by
starting either script IO_Show or IO_Exercise.

Ray