parallel port cameras and sbigudrv on Linux

Hi,

I couldn't resist a deal on an SBIG ST-9E camera which is parallel port only. My hope was that I could find some way to connect this camera with the SBIG universal driver for Linux on an x86 board and then use my own software to control it, as I have with the USB cameras. Now as I research it I am not so sure that will work. I wonder if someone familiar with sbigudrv implementation on Linux could out of the kindness of their heart (since I know these products are long since unsupported) tell me:

• whether the sbigudrv still includes parallel camera support on linux? Or if any version includes it?
• if so, how does it use the hardware (so I can choose the right sort of x86 board where parports are getting scarce)
• if Linux is not an option, is there some way to recreate the "firmware" of an SBIG e2p (DOS?) using publicly available software?

Thanks in advance,

Jim Garlick

 

Hi,

I bought a motherboard with a parallel port that the Linux CNC people like with their motion control breakouts so I figured it had a decent chance of working here.
Installed debian 7.6.0 x86 32-bit, and no luck opening ST-9E on LPT1 via the universal driver (2014-10-27T12-58 from Jan's dropbox). I tried as root and as me, tried supplying base address, tried both LPT1 and LPT2. Always 'Device not found'. The camera is powered up with fan running and red light on.

Any hints from those familiar with how the sbigudrv works on Linux? I feel like I'm groping around in the dark, normally not such a bad thing but I'm not under the stars.

Thanks,

Jim

 

I straced the sbigudrv attempting to open the parallel port and found it is trying to open /dev/sbiglpt0 which doesn't exist. So I symlinked /dev/parport0 to /dev/sbiglpt0 and now the error is 'Camera not found' from the CC_ESTABLISH_LINK call.

I can see (again with strace) that now the sbigudrv is doing some ioctl() system calls on the parport device and getting back EINVAL (Invalid Argument) before returning camera not found. This makes me think the sbigudrv was not built to use the interface provided by the linux parport device. So my question now is...what is it trying to interface with, that provides /dev/sbiglpt0?

Jim

 

OK, I see there that there is a custom kernel module that provides /dev/sbiglpt0 called sbiglptmod.o, and that it was only provided in binary form for linux 2.4.

Any chance of having that released as source so that it could be ported to a modern kernel? I have some experience doing that and could volunteer to try.

 

I would email Doug about porting.

 

Unfortunately it sounds like the source is no longer available. From what I can tell it was on the web site at one point, so I don't think access would be an issue if we could find it. If anyone has a copy squirreled away, please contact me.