A handy parallel port tester

What is this parallel port tester ?

This is a simple user-space program, that can currently read/write the parallel port.

I use the "parallel port driver in userspace" feature of Linux, so you need to have it compiled into your kernel for proper operation. When compiled as module, this is the "ppdev" module. You will need to "modprobe" it before you can use pptester. Also, make sure the "lp" module is not loaded, or it will prevent "ppdev" to work correctly.

Now that the core architecture and functions are done, it is easily extensible.

Current features

For the moment, this tool can print the plip wires state on one host, and generate some simuli on the wires from the peer host. Here is a sample output produced on the monitoring host:

PLIP WIRES STATES
    local | remote   | value
----------+----------+-------
       d0 | error    | 0
       d1 | select   | 0
       d2 | paperout | 0
       d3 | ack      | 0
       d4 | busy     | 0
    error | d0       | 1
   select | d1       | 1
 paperout | d2       | 0
      ack | d3       | 1
     busy | d4       | 1
control: init select

I want to help !

You are very welcome ! Send me your comments, ideas and patches by e-mail. On the other hand, flames are better re-directed to /dev/null :)

Where do I get it ?

The archive is there. Look for pptester-xxx.tar.gz.