[avrdude-dev] Windows docs

[E. Weddington]

Hello!

Attached is a text file that has the documentation for the Windows 
variant. I want to especially point out the Credits section and make 
sure it is included in the documentation. When the AUTHORS file 
actually has something in it, it should be copied there as well.

Feel free to slice, dice, rearrange, add, and edit as you see fit. 
The outline format I did it in was for writing purposes only and the 
final form does not have to look like it.

Eric

avrdude for Windows
-------------------

Below is the list of differences of avrdude built for the Windows platform.

1. Port Names

1.1. Serial Ports

When you select a serial port (i.e. when using an STK500) use the 
Windows serial port device names such as: com1, com2, etc.

1.2. Parallel Ports

avrdude will only accept 3 Windows parallel port names: lpt1, lpt2, or lpt3. 
Each of these names corresponds to a fixed parallel port base address:
lpt1 = 0x378
lpt2 = 0x278
lpt3 = 0x3BC

On your desktop PC, lpt1 will be the most common choice. If you are using a
laptop, you might have to use lpt3 instead of lpt1. Select the name of the port
the corresponds to the base address of the parallel port that you want.



2. Configuration Files

2.1. Configuration file names.

avrdude on Windows looks for a system configuration file name of avrdude.conf
and looks for a user override configuration file of avrdude.rc.

2.1. How avrdude finds the configuration files.

avrdude on Windows has a different way of searching for the system and user
configuration files. Below is the search method for locating the
configuration files:

1.      The directory from which the application loaded.

2.      The current directory.

3.      Windows 95: The Windows system directory. Use the GetSystemDirectory 
    function to get the path of this directory.

    Windows NT: The 32-bit Windows system directory. Use the 
    GetSystemDirectory function to get the path of this directory. The 
    name of this directory is SYSTEM32.

4.      Windows NT: The 16-bit Windows system directory. There is no Win32 
    function that obtains the path of this directory, but it is searched.
    The name of this directory is SYSTEM.
    
5.      The Windows directory. Use the GetWindowsDirectory function to get 
    the path of this directory. 
    
6.      The directories that are listed in the PATH environment variable. 



3. Using the parallel port

3.1. Windows NT/2K/XP

On Windows NT, 2000, and XP user applications cannot directly access the
parallel port. However, kernel mode drivers can access the parallel port.
giveio.sys is a driver that can allow user applications to set the state
of the parallel port pins.

Before using avrdude, the giveio.sys driver must be loaded. The
accompanying loaddrv.exe program can do just that. loaddrv is also a 
command line program.

To make things even easier there are 3 batch files that are also
included:
1. install_giveio.bat - Install and start the giveio driver.
2. status_giveio.bat - Check on the status of the giveio driver.
3. remove_giveio.bat - Stop and remove the giveio driver from memory.

These 3 batch files calls the loaddrv program with various options
to install, start, stop, and remove the driver.

When you first execute install_giveio.bat, loaddrv.exe and giveio.sys
must be in the current directory. When install_giveio.bat is executed 
it will copy giveio.sys from your current directory to your Windows 
directory. It will then load the driver from the Windows directory. This
means that after the first time install_giveio is executed, subsequently 
you should be able to execute the batch file from any directory and have
it successfully start the driver.


3.2 Windows 95/98

On Windows 95 and 98 the giveio.sys driver is not needed.



4. Credits.
Thanks to
Dale Roberts for the giveio driver.
Paula Tomlinson for the loaddrv sources.
Chris Liechti <address@hidden> for modifying loaddrv to be command
    line driven and for writing the batch files.