Visual Basic Question

[stealthrt]

I am looking for a way to use this product
http://kitsrus.com/jpg2/k74.jpg
http://kitsrus.com/jpg2/k74.jpg
http://kitsrus.com/pdf/k74.pdf

(Kits R Us Kit 74)

with a visual basic program. What I will do with it will be the following:

- Will be able to make a form in VB with 8 buttons on it.

- Each button will control one of the printer port (relay) on the product.

- I will need to be able to turn each port off and on whenever I hit the button.

- This will be used in a car (to turn on the sound system, lights, neons..etcetc)

The only problem is that the program it comes with doesn't have any source code and I don't want to use the program it has. I would like to make my own in VB so I can design and control it however I would like. It sends out 8 bits (words) so an example of it would be:

to turn on relay #1 would be:
00000001

to turn on relay #5 would be:
00010000

to turn on relay #5 & 2 would be:
00010010

Here is the software that comes with it. I want to use almost the same set up, but just having the relay come on when i push a button for it.
Software that comes with it


I will be running it with Windows 2000. Examples and other stuff would be GREAT!

Thanks for your time,
David

 

[Confused]

Welcome to Anandtech Forums! I hope you enjoy it here and stick around 🙂


You can get VB to access the parallel ports quite easily, using the ComCtrl stuff.

The only possible difficult bit of this could be getting Win2k to give access to the parallel port. There is a program out there which allows this called Port95NT, which will give access to the parallel port. This also includes, if i remember correctly, some sample VB and C++ code 🙂


I will be interested in knowing how this turns out! 🙂



Confused