First Time Help

I don't see it listed in cat /proc/ioports

Running the things you mentioned seems to indicate the driver is working
but I would have guessed that if I did something on the machine like depress a limit switch, the outputs of one of the pins from show pin would have changed, but they do not.

Not every possible memory address is listed in the manual. (300 is what the old software was configured for) I have tried setting the card to its default 0x2A0 and I am getting the same results.

Here is what I have so far for a hal file

# standard pinout config file for 3-axis steppers
# using a parport for I/O
#
# first load the parport driver
loadrt pcl720 ioaddr=0x300

#
#
# next connect the parport functions to threads
# read inputs first
addf pcl720.0.read base-thread
# write outputs last

addf pcl720.0.write base-thread
#
# finally connect physical pins to the signals

net Xstep => pcl720.0.pin-02-out
net Xdir => pcl720.0.pin-00-out
net Ystep => pcl720.0.pin-01-out
net Ydir => pcl720.0.pin-03-out
net Zstep => pcl720.0.pin-06-out
net Zdir => pcl720.0.pin-04-out

# create a signal for the estop loopback
net estop-loop iocontrol.0.user-enable-out iocontrol.0.emc-enable-in

###
### Sample separate limit switches on the X axis (axis 0)
###

#net X-neg-limit pcl720.0.pin-8-in => axis.0.neg-lim-sw-in
#net X-pos-limit pcl720.0.pin-10-in => axis.0.pos-lim-sw-in
#net Y-neg-limit pcl720.0.pin-12-in => axis.0.neg-lim-sw-in
#net Y-pos-limit pcl720.0.pin-14-in => axis.0.pos-lim-sw-in
#net Z-neg-limit pcl720.0.pin-11-in => axis.0.neg-lim-sw-in
#net Z-pos-limit pcl720.0.pin-9-in => axis.0.pos-lim-sw-in

Actually the old DOS program still does sort of work. I have two different versions, both seem to be broken, one (the original to the machine) version 2.303a I can't get to detect the copy protection key and will only run in demo mode (40 line limit), but works otherwise. The other a slightly new build 2.307i, detects the key fine but keeps crashing with a stack overflow error, also runs the machine fine otherwise. So I know that I should be able to get this thing to do something.

I don't see it in hwinfo. It is currently configured to 0x2A0 and I don't see anything at that address.

Here is a paragraph from the manual for the card. Would any of these software examples from the manufacturer be useful?


2.8 ACL-7120A Software Library Installation

The DOS software library is supplied with the ACL-7120A. Function
prototypes and useful constants are defined in the header files in the LIB
directory. The DOS library software includes a utility program, C language
libraries, and demonstration programs to help reduce the programming work.
Please refer to the ACLS-DLL1 function reference manual on ADLINK CD.
The DOS functions are compatible with ACLS-DLL1 functions except those
without a “W” prefix in function names.