Parallel Port - Mac/PC

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ectoplasma's icon

ectoplasma

Hi everyone,
I use Max to program psychological experiments and I am facing a big problem here. I now use Max 5 on both PCs and Macs and I need to communicate through a parallel port to other devices (specifically an EEG machine). Can someone tell me if there is some Max custom-made object around that can send messages through the different pins of a parallel port?

Thanks a lot in advance,
Riccardo

Jean-Francois Charles's icon

Jean-Francois Charles

Isn't it a serial port? In that case, you need a USB-serial adapter, such as the highly recommended Keyspan 19HS, and in Max, just use the [serial] object. Check the related Max tutorial, and check the doc of your EEG machine, you should manage to talk to it, and receive info from it.

ectoplasma's icon

ectoplasma

Thanks Jean-Francois,
actually my EEG technician tells me that they still use the parallel port since it is the most reliable one in terms of millisecond timing. No ideas about any way to do it?

Roth's icon

Roth

I've not used one myself, but I do now that bidirectional USB-Parallel cables exist. There may be some way to use one of those with the [serial] object, although I have no idea how direct access to the pins would work. If the cable itself doesn't do it, there should be some method using some hardware hacking to build a serial to parallel interface that would do what you need.

Macciza's icon

Macciza