Controlling Parallel Port Over the Intyernet

finnpark

I want to be able to control a parallel port on my computer with Apache webserver from anywhere in the world. Any ideas anyone? CGI perhaps?

Enygma

I suppose if you know a bit of Perl and find a good module for controlling a parallel port over The Internet (there's bound to be one on CPAN) then why not?

Me, I'd probably use RMI for the networking end of it and hack together something in Java for the parallel port stuff. (But that's because I'm used to Java and we Java Programmers like to add layers of complexity, just because )

It sounds like a bit of fun, shouldn't be too hard either.

[edit]
Oops! I read that as CGI.pm, sorry!
Before anyone goes flaming me over CGI != Perl.
[/edit]

finnpark

Thanks for that. No I dont know any Perl but could learn. I was thinking of using C++ and CGI or maybe just PHP. Ive never touched Java so Im not sure how that would go. I am more of a hardware sort of guy. I am able to control the parallel port using C++ and Im able to set up Apache with CGI-bin but how do I write a CGI program to call my C++ program?

hostyle

http://search.cpan.org/~scott/Device-ParallelPort-1.00/lib/Device/ParallelPort.pm

finnpark

Thanks for that link. Must read it in detail but looks good.