How the HAL does this work?

Okay, I currently am using axis and have a working plasma cutter cnc on parport 0.

Finally, after buying a second parport card with a know chipset I can successfully have stepconf acknowledge that it exists, set the base address and configure it as an output or input card. I can successfully "see" input using hal configuration and "watch" the inputs change when I apply inputs. I haven't really tried the outputs yet, but they do light up leds that have been installed on them so i have no reason to believe they are not working.

Since stepconf doesn't seem to have a screen for the second parallel port assignment, it seems from what I have read I need to use HAL to do that.

Stepconf creates the custom.hal file which is where I believe I should be putting my assignments.

As soon as i put some commands in the HAL file, something like

net parport.1.pin-02-in => parport.1.pin-01-out

linux cnc crashes when I start it. (same sort of error message box as when you have the wrong base address).

I sense that the file is being looked at since it causes a bunch of errors

I would have thought that input pin 2 would turn on the led on pin 1 when an input is applied. But I don't get there cause cnc won't start.

I assume I am missing something.

what's this loadrt and addf stuff?

The goal is to add a torch height controller and a jog button(s). Eventually some ladder logic will be needed, I did find a field to check in stepconf to load that and it seems to appear.

Is there a trick to re-starting cnc without doing a cold boot? If I make changes to stepconf or the custom.hal it appears necessary to do a cold boot every time, or errors occur even on known good configurations.

LinuxCNC is not crashing, it's just politely telling you that you have a syntax error in your HAL file

The format of a net command is:

net SignalName PIN [PIN] [PIN]

and you have

net PIN PIN

you might try

net test_signal parport.1.pin-02-in => parport.1.pin-01-out

and then maybe take a look at this hal tutorial:

linuxcnc.org/docs/html/hal/basic_hal.html