Tech2000 RoboScope Info... Connection & Setup
Dual-Axis Telescope Goto Drive From PC Using Dob-Driver II™ Astronomical Motor Tracking Kits


Application Note - Tech2000 October 1, 2011

Connecting the Tech2000 Roboscope GOTO accessory from a Windows PC to operate Dob-Driver II dual-axis motor drive units.
Including Laptops without Built-In Parallel Ports.
Some content is applicable to older Astro-Cams using Parallel Port, and users who just want to update their Roboscope already in-use.


4-Step Summarized:

  1) Create a physical parallel port (if none exists presently).
  2) Get a free upgrade Roboscope package that services the new port address.  Download the free Roboscope 5.3 complete zipfolder (no install is needed - just download it and copy all its files over your existing Robo folder saying Yes-To-All overwrites of existing files). Read the Whatsup file in this download for details but here are the main revisions: LST auto-clock updating;  LST tracking 9x better; Parallel port address is shown at startup when one is found with a Dob-Driver connected; more parallel port addresses are searched now, and more can be added (by Tech2000) at any time upon your request; screen characters are red now on black background; calibration paths are now shown (useful for User-Catalogs too); all previous installations will work with this 5.3 upgrade.
  3) Use kernel-mode drivers (if your OS is blocking direct-access to a parallel port address that you know is valid and shows).
  4) Use the real nice app from www.printfil.com if you wish to print catalogs etc from Roboscope in a Windows OS. Its wonderful.

Introduction

  Sure - you can just plug-in your Roboscope cable into any PC parallel port (25-pin female socket pins & a D-shell shape) from ancient models up through Win XP, plug the other end into (any) Dob-Driver II hand control, start the Roboscope program and voila!  Instant happiness - it just works with no setup or software installation, patches, etc.  But what if you do not have a parallel port connector on a new laptop PC?  Certainly it will not be present on your netbook or palm PC either no matter which make that may be.  And how do you get around the dreaded "OS-upgrades" problem after you installed 'service-packs' or migrated to a 'new and improved OS' that typically results in harsh interfacing with what they are suddenly going to call 'legacy peripherals' 6 months after you clicked 'OK' for such improvements?  Well it turns out there are some solutions.

Port Solutions - If you have a 25-pin D-Shell connector with female socket-pins on your PC already then skip this section.

  Many new PC/Windows based laptop designs have excluded the legacy Parallel Ports that users have relied upon to connect to their older SBIG and Attik Parallel Port based cameras as well as Dob-Drivers and many other industrial sensor/control devices in addition to the legacy use of parallel printers. This leaves users with the following options ranked in order of increasing cost:

  • Buy a Parallel Port adapter.

  • Buy an older laptop, perhaps used, that contains a Parallel Port having the 25-pin connector.

  • Observatory or semi-perm installations - use a desktop PC, which either still have a parallel port or always the ability to easily add one cheaply.

  We'll address the first option in this Application Note.
  Our Parallel Port based Dob-Drivers, and more specifically the Windows drivers they depend on, require a direct access to the Parallel Port registers. Very common for commercial and industrial I/O systems.  This means the (USB) to Parallel Port adapters that are commonly found at very low cost for parallel printer interfacing will not work with our drives since they do not permit direct access, and thus you must find a slide-in card that emulates a true legacy Parallel Port.
  We have found and tested two compatible cards for laptop use depending on whether your laptop supports the full size PCMCIA cards or the narrower Express Card. If you're in the market for a new laptop make sure it supports one of these two standards and has 32 Bit Windows installed on it as our Parallel Port drivers are not compatible with and will not run under 64 bit versions of Windows.

Full Size PCMCIA Slot

  For the regular PCMCIA slots we recommend the Quatech SPP-100 LPT port card.  It can be ordered online from the Quatech web site www.quatech.com and costs around $129.  A bit lower price available from other sellers of the same.  Creates a true full-function parallel port for the Roboscope cable as well as parallel cameras and many other PC parallel peripherals such as older external drives, flatbed scanners etc.

Narrower Express Card Slot
  For the Express Card slots we recommend the Best Connectivity SD-EXP50021 card which can be purchased from Newegg (www.newegg.com) for around $30.  Strangely enough one of our customers bought the Quatech Express version of the PCMCIA card (model SPPXP-100) and reported it did not work so stick with the Best Connectivity card.  It's cheaper anyway so you win on that account if your laptop handles Express Cards OK. You just slide-em in and have an instant parallel port connector at the ready.

Installation / Configuration

1. Follow the manufacture's recommended software and hardware installation procedures to install the card and the basic Windows LPT drivers included with the card. This is a crucial step that without proper installation the Dob-Drive will not be recognized.
2. Reboot the PC, making sure the Parallel Port card is installed in the computer. At this point you should use the Device Manager to see that the newly installed LPT port is present and then tell the new Parallel Port card to emulate LPT1 via the Port Settings tab of the LPT Port Properties. Write down the port base address shown there, on a sheet of paper - no requirement for IRQ is used whether it is shown or not so do not worry about that IRQ part.  Note- if no 'LPT1, LPT2, or LPT3 device is shown, contact the card manufacturer to correct the card installation until one of the LPT devices is shown that relates to your new card-slot device, the default is LPT1 when there is only one parallel port.
3. Connect the Roboscope parallel connecting cord to a Dob-Driver II, Power-on the Dob-Driver and let it finish startup diagnostic, Start Roboscope (click on Robo.bat in your Roboscope files group folder).  When Roboscope starts, type 'new' at the first prompt for telescope selection just for this test.  Note- If 'no comm-link to Dob-Driver' results on-screen, then email us the port-base address you wrote-down in the above step... the Roboscope 5.3 version currently supports LPT base addresses 0378, or 03BC (the usual LPT I/O base address register location options for a parallel port when it was 'native' on the machine already), and also checks at address FCD8 (the typical port address created by adding parallel port cards in laptop slots). But some other systems or OS requirements can map LPT ports to new location addresses not on this list, and we can easily add those new addresses to Roboscope then email you the new program (any LPT base address less than FFFF hexidecimal).
4. When you get past the above successfully, select 'Manual Pan' from the Roboscope menu and make sure the telescope motors are responding with motions in all 4 directions to verify all is well.  If still getting "No Comm Link" message then see the problems section below.
5. Finally, on subsequent nights if you plan on using the DobDriver II with a PC, make sure the Parallel Port card is installed in the computer before you power up the computer or else the Parallel Port Driver won't automatically start and your LPT-port won't be recognized.
6. Don't forget to read or print-out the Readme documents in the Roboscope file package, the WhatsUp document describing program changes, and instructions in the subfolder for XP and  2000 users if you experience any problem.

Any Other Installation / Configuration / Problems ?

Problem:  "No comm-link to Dob-Driver" when starting Roboscope.  Presuming you already have an active and valid port address described above.  Some PC manufacturers that use XP or 2000, Vista and W7 (Microsoft NT-based operating systems) block Roboscope from accessing the parallel port for communication with the Tech2000 Dob-Driver II.  Many customers report it works directly just fine, but it actually depends on the manufacturer model and its BIOS and Service-Pak extensions and the type of Windows-Update patches that are installed for port-access security (of which as you know there are MANY!).  Earlier versions of Windows, including original XP/SP2 editions, 95, 98, 98SE, and Me, do not have this blocking feature so always work well out of the box without any modifications.  Some laptops do not have the BIOS support for standard parallel ports so those must be replicated via the plug-in cards described above.


Reason:  The Roboscope program is like many industrial utility programs that are now defined by Microsoft as "User-Mode" programs.  The same applies to many other astronomy equipment devices on the market like some SBIG and Attik cameras etc. that require direct control of an I/O port without an argument or agreement as to why access is important - if the program is not 'permitted' ahead of time then it is now considered a potential attack.  Microsoft has issued numerous updates (particularly in Win-2000), that for security reasons, block the direct access to hardware ports like LPT1 etc. that these kind of programs use and indeed very much need to perform properly in real-time.

Solution:  Install a kernel-mode driver.  After you are sure that the Dob drive unit is working normally by itself, and you have set up LPT1 for the system default parallel port on the PC, and verified the LPT1 device physical address (as described before) and perhaps any other criteria defined by the Readme Roboscope instructions produce no improvement...  then install a kernel mode driver to get around this problem.

  UserPort.SYS is a kernel mode driver for WinNT/2000/XP that gives 'usermode' programs access to I/O ports.  This makes it possible to access hardware directly from a normal executable in the same way as under Windows 95/98/ME.  This driver does not work on Windows 95/98/ME and there is really no need to run it anyway because I/O port access is always granted to usermode programs on those operating systems.

With 2000 or sometimes XP laptops from certain makes, you may have to set each executable file in the Roboscope program environment to run in Win98 compatibility, which is each of the two "BASICA" files BASICA.COM and BASICA.XEC files (right-click and select Properties).

Download:  The latest UserPort.SYS zipfile can be downloaded from this webpage (very compact - it's only about 34 KB).  The folder with these same files is already on Roboscope distribution disks shipped after 2/11/08 and in Roboscope zip folders from our downloads.
  http://www.embeddedtronics.com/design&ideas.html

  The kernel mode package you want to install is called "UserPort".
  Download it, read the pdf about using & security issues, then install & start it.
  Its real easy to use once you have done it - you just run it before starting Roboscope and set the parallel port address you want to allow unrestricted access to.

User notes from Larry F on Cloudy Nights:  "I installed UserPort on my Windows2000.  It's simplicity itself.  You just run the UserPort program (which identifies the port address to be opened to free access) and keep it running while you run Roboscope.  I made sure my boot configuration identified 3BC as the address of LPT1: my hardware port address in the hardware profile (Control Panel/System/Hardware/Device Manager/Ports/Printer Port/Resources) I made sure I selected a profile that also had the same address, 3BC.  Once that's done, everything will work fine, including your printer if you have one.  (What you are going to do with a printer during an observing session is quite another matter)."
  Editors Note - 3BC is only one of the most common port addresses that Larry describes in his own specific example above.  Any other valid and active parallel port address that you found on your own system can also be used. You will identify it to this UserPort utility.


Last-Ditch Efforts

  If UserPort above still does not seem to get you past the 'No comm-link' warning, there are other deeper kernel drivers that are more robust and larger in size and scope.  A quick google of 'PortTalk' and 'DirectI/O' for instance will lead you to these more aggressive parallel port grabber methods as well as ability to excersise control over other Windows system physical interfaces. These are naturally more complicated to use however, so you need to be a bit more PC-savvy to engage and utilize such utilities effectively.

  If you actually read the entirety above and understood it then congratulate yourself and hold your ground with great pride. There are people whom actually do care. I am one of them and I do reside at your side. By way of explanation I have subsisted since 1956 - deriving nutrient upon a singular premise - These Others are Same as I - and I shall not never reject that clan of my kind.