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win 98 SE as a device controller ? ?
Hi Folks
I'm sitting here with 4 win 98SE machines, and 2 XP's, and a Ubuntu, and am DOS compatible. I would like to be able to control certain aspects of my greenhouse, chicken coop and garden activities; several lights, heaters, and water valves are what come to mind immediatly. Dynamic response to remote sensors would be icing on the cake eventually, but a simple digital multi-output timeclock thingymajigy to start with would tickle me no end. Do any of the group know how I might get started on this quest? I have googled around a lot on this but can't find the meaty how to source that I need to get me going. yours douglas I am Stumped. = Canadian aphorism for having been chased up a tree by a moose, with no further options. Not to be confused with UP a stump. |
#2
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win 98 SE as a device controller ? ?
On Tue, 6 Jul 2010 18:04:40 -0700 (PDT), koonaone
wrote: Hi Folks I'm sitting here with 4 win 98SE machines, and 2 XP's, and a Ubuntu, and am DOS compatible. I would like to be able to control certain aspects of my greenhouse, chicken coop and garden activities; several lights, heaters, and water valves are what come to mind immediatly. Dynamic response to remote sensors would be icing on the cake eventually, but a simple digital multi-output timeclock thingymajigy to start with would tickle me no end. Do any of the group know how I might get started on this quest? I have googled around a lot on this but can't find the meaty how to source that I need to get me going. A few observations. flame suit on Win9X/ME are all DOS-based, and user programs are able to directly access machine ports. Later MS O/S are NT-based and interpose their own layers, requiring third party tools to obtain this low-level access (*). 9X machines are probably close to optimal for your task. In languages such as QBasic (supplied with Win9X/ME) it is straightforward to write simple programs to control I/O via the serial and/or parallel port. Ebay often shows cheap external boards which interface to these ports and provide input isolation (usually opto) and output via relays, which give isolation as well as increased load handling. If you want to go down this route, I can dig up many links to websites which provide much more detail especially re using the parallel port for this type of work. (*) or other workarounds. |
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win 98 SE as a device controller ? ?
fly on the wall wrote:
A few observations. flame suit on Win9X/ME are all DOS-based, and user programs are able to directly access machine ports. You have several misconceptions there. It's true that NT-based OS's are normally able to prevent application programs from having direct access to I/O ports, but there are several ways to get around that. For example, I have a 16-bit application program (written in power basic 3.5 for DOS) that performs direct I/O to about 16 ports in the 500h - 5b0h range. The application is "packaged" inside a 32-bit shell that uses "port talker" to give the app the access it needs when it's running on an XP machine: http://www.beyondlogic.org/porttalk/porttalk.htm The misconceptions you have is that Windows 9x/me are "DOS-based". They are not. They are far more similar to 32-bit NT-based OS's then they are to DOS. For example, Win-9x/me puts the CPU into protected mode upon bootup, whereas DOS only operates in real mode. You might also be confused by the fact that both Win-9x/me and DOS share the same file system (FAT/FAT32, not NTFS) so you might think that they might have more in common because of that. |
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win 98 SE as a device controller ? ?
koonaone wrote:
I would like to be able to control certain aspects of my greenhouse, chicken coop and garden activities; several lights, heaters, and water valves are what come to mind immediatly. Dynamic response to remote sensors would be icing on the cake eventually, but a simple digital multi-output timeclock thingymajigy to start with would tickle me no end. Do any of the group know how I might get started on this quest? I have googled around a lot on this but can't find the meaty how to source that I need to get me going. Depending on the your knowledge and familiarity with windows-based programming, if you are more familar with DOS programming tools (various versions of basic) then yes, it can be much faster to code up a control app in basic vs using visual studio, visual C, C++, or hardware specific solutions (National Instruments - Labview, etc). In the past, I've built my own ISA interface cards to perform signal acquisition and external device control (relay's, A/D, speech synthesizers, etc) and I've also used ISA protyping cards. It can be very quick and easy to build an ISA interface card to do digital I/O. PCI cards can also be accessed by DOS/Basic programs without necessarily needing a DOS driver. As long as you know the I/O addresses being used by the card, you can simply read and write to them directly. Here's an example: http://www.mccdaq.com/isa-data-acqui...-DAS08-JR.aspx That board has 8 analog inputs, 8 digital inputs and 8 digital outputs. Cost is $269. Or look at this one: http://www.omega.com/ppt/pptsc.asp?r...Y16&Nav=dasd03 This has 16 relays built onto the board, which allows you to control devices requiring 120 VAC or 28 VDC. It's an ISA board, and it costs $369. The closest thing I've built along the lines of what your looking at was to control 3 phone lines using relays. The relays (each double-pole / double-throw) allowed a phone line to be connected either to a digital PBX phone system or to a computer modem in a PC depending on a time schedule. Given an office with 5 roll-over phone lines, it was required that some of them were used as dial-in lines after hours and on weekends. So at 5 pm, line 5 was switched from being connected to the phone system to being connected to modem #1. At 6 pm, line 4 was switched to modem 2, and at 7 pm line 3 was switched to modem 3. In the morning, the reversed was done so that by 9 am, all 3 lines were reconnected back to the phone system. Weekends and holidays had their own schedule. The control program was written in either quick basic or power basic, and had an interface that allowed the user to force any line to immediately be connected to either the phone system or a modem for manual control. The hardware interface itself was done through the parallel port (ie - printer port). The printer port on most motherboards is a latch that can store an 8-bit value. I used a Vmos transistor to take the digital signal lines from the printer port and drive a low power relay, and connected an LED for a visual indication of which relay was on. I used 5 volts that the computer already had to power the relays. Real easy stuff. Here's something I found just now: http://www.epanorama.net/circuits/parallel_output.html http://www.electronickits.com/kit/co...lec/ck1601.htm http://www.circuitdb.com/circuits/id/85 |
#5
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win 98 SE as a device controller ? ?
Aha! this looks heartening, thanks guys.
In antiquity Basic and batch files were very useful to me, I'm sure with a little brushup they could be again, fly otw wrote Jul 6, 7:42 pm If you want to go down this route, I can dig up many links to websites which provide much more detail Yes fly otw send those links, and thanks 98 Guy for those you posted. (Jul 6, 8:59 pm} I'm a computer user and not much of an electrician, so this aspect looks like a good project for me to get my teeth in to next winter, I'll have much more shop and desk time available. Right now my valves are independant battery clock operated, lights and the heater are mechanicaly clock operated or manual. I can visualise a louvered window into my house from the greenhouse to capture episodic spring and fall solar heat. And so on. These things I can cogitate and plan for right now. Thanks again douglas On Tue, 6 Jul 2010 18:04:40 -0700 (PDT), koonaone wrote: Hi Folks I'm sitting here with 4 win 98SE machines, and 2 XP's, and a Ubuntu, and am DOS compatible. I would like to be able to control certain aspects of my greenhouse, ........................... |
#6
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win 98 SE as a device controller ? ?
On Tue, 06 Jul 2010 23:59:53 -0400, 98 Guy wrote:
fly on the wall wrote: A few observations. flame suit on Win9X/ME are all DOS-based, and user programs are able to directly access machine ports. You have several misconceptions there. It's true that NT-based OS's are normally able to prevent application programs from having direct access to I/O ports, but there are several ways to get around that. For example, I have a 16-bit application program (written in power basic 3.5 for DOS) that performs direct I/O to about 16 ports in the 500h - 5b0h range. The application is "packaged" inside a 32-bit shell that uses "port talker" to give the app the access it needs when it's running on an XP machine: http://www.beyondlogic.org/porttalk/porttalk.htm Did you deliberately omit the following line: Later MS O/S are NT-based and interpose their own layers, requiring third party tools to obtain this low-level access (*). and the asterisked footnote: (*) or other workarounds. The misconceptions you have is that Windows 9x/me are "DOS-based". They are not. They are. They are GUI shells atop DOS 7..... They have a LOT in common with DOS. But I have no interest in getting into an endless war of semantics with you or anyone else on the matter. They are far more similar to 32-bit NT-based OS's then they are to DOS. For example, Win-9x/me puts the CPU into protected mode upon bootup, whereas DOS only operates in real mode. You might also be confused by the fact that both Win-9x/me and DOS share the same file system (FAT/FAT32, not NTFS) so you might think that they might have more in common because of that. |
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win 98 SE as a device controller ? ?
On Wed, 7 Jul 2010 08:31:10 -0700 (PDT), koonaone
wrote: Aha! this looks heartening, thanks guys. In antiquity Basic and batch files were very useful to me, I'm sure with a little brushup they could be again, fly otw wrote Jul 6, 7:42 pm If you want to go down this route, I can dig up many links to websites which provide much more detail Yes fly otw send those links, and thanks 98 Guy for those you posted. (Jul 6, 8:59 pm} Apart from the Tomi Engdahl link posted by 98Guy (third from last), have a look at: http://www.beyondlogic.org/ (about half-way down, right column, there are a number of useful docs) Jan Axelson's page at http://www.lvr.com/ - parallel port link near the top Also http://www.beyondlogic.org/spp/parallel.htm There's a few to get you started. QBasic - for the reasons I mentioned - is a good tool for this stuff. (I still write compiled apps in VB-DOS for use on 9X systems where parallel port I/O - and particularly input - is required.) |
#8
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win 98 SE as a device controller ? ?
fly on the wall wrote:
The misconceptions you have is that Windows 9x/me are "DOS-based". They are not. They are. They are GUI shells atop DOS 7. You are completely wrong about that. You are thinking of Windows 3. The transistion from Win16 to Win32 happened with Windows NT and Windows 95. There can be no DOS support layers involved in anything that's running Win32 code. You are confused with the fact that the Win32 API in Windows 95 allowed flat thunks for 32-bit code to call into 16-bit code for compatibility with older DOS applications, while NT allowed only generic thunking. Both NT and 9x allowed only generic thunking from Win16 to Win32. To say that DOS acts like or exists as an underlying support layer from which Windows 95/98 are run on top of is completely absurd. It is a complete impossibility for many reasons (memory management, CPU operating mode, multitasking, etc). You might also be confused because win-9x/me are booted or launched while the computer is transiently running DOS. This is necessary in order to load Win.com. Win.com loads and hands control off to Vmm32.vxd, which will switch the CPU from real to protected mode, effectively removing all traces of "DOS" from the machine's operating state. |
#9
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win 98 SE as a device controller ? ?
On Tue, 6 Jul 2010 18:04:40 -0700 (PDT), koonaone
put finger to keyboard and composed: I'm sitting here with 4 win 98SE machines, and 2 XP's, and a Ubuntu, and am DOS compatible. I would like to be able to control certain aspects of my greenhouse, chicken coop and garden activities; several lights, heaters, and water valves are what come to mind immediatly. Dynamic response to remote sensors would be icing on the cake eventually, but a simple digital multi-output timeclock thingymajigy to start with would tickle me no end. Do any of the group know how I might get started on this quest? I have googled around a lot on this but can't find the meaty how to source that I need to get me going. I would use the Win98SE boxes as data loggers rather than controllers. Instead I would leave the control up to dedicated PICAXEs. These are PIC microcontrollers that run a version of BASIC. You can program them from the serial port of your PC. An 8-pin PICAXE costs about $3, and a larger version with more I/O pins costs about $10. You can interface the PICAXEs wirelessly with your Win98SE boxes via cheap AM Tx/Rx modules that accept RS232C serial data streams. See page 42 of the following PDF: http://www.t4.ie/LC%20Technology/day...its%20Book.pdf Here is a greenhouse monitor with AM Tx/Rx modules: http://www.rev-ed.co.uk/docs/project...%20Monitor.pdf PICAXE home page: http://www.picaxe.co.uk/ - Franc Zabkar -- Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email. |
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