Arduino Board as HP-IL device?

[J-F Garnier]

The simplest way to connect the Arduino board to the HP-IL is to connect it to my PIL-IO board with the serial logic-level link (UART type). The HP-IL protocol is managed by the PIL-IO, the Arduino board can send/receive data as a HP-IL device, and can emulate devices like display/printer/instrument/plotter/interface. But NOT mass storage since the "Filbert" protocol is using the HP-IL device-dependant commands (DDL/DDT).

For full HP-IL capability (including HP-IL controller capability), the PIL-IO must be equiped with the firmware of the PIL-Box, so still using UART link instead of USB. The complete HP-IL protocol is then translated to the serial link and the Arduino board has to manage it, see the ILPer (device) or ILCtrl (controller) code for instance.

And the last option is to manage the HP-IL signals directly from the Arduino CPU. Note that this is quite CPU demanding with fast highest-prority interrupt (for input), extended interrupt-disabled periods (for output), and the capability to sample both the HP-IL lines at at least 2MHz frequency. I don't know if this is possible on the Atmel chip.

J-F