[open] TMS parallel port managing delays

faedojury

Dear all,

I am running a visual behavioral experiment where subjects must make a size judgment one 2 elements presented on a picture (which one is larger) and then press left or right. Experiment works fine using psychopy back-end but now i want to add TMS on it.

In the experiment I present the picture during 200 ms. and I want to use 5 different delays (0-50-100-150-200 ms) in the TMS pulse. in order to "send" the pulse instruction to the TMS i just need to send a "1" pulse through the parallel port and then come back to "0" state.

So I have two problems at the moment:

1- On one side I can't use the parrallel_port plugin because the parallel port of the computer is an external card whose number is E010 ... what means it is the port number 57360 in decimal values, and this number in not covered by the port plugin. is there anyway to overcome this issue?

2- In the case I could use the plugin, is there any way to "tell" the plugging to "wait" for an x amount of time before sending the pulse?

I think that both problems could be solved using inline code , but looking in the forum I just found the posibility to use something like:

from ctypes import windll
port = 889 
dev = windll.inpout32 
val = dev.Inp32(port) 
print "Read %d from port %d" % (val, port)

but when I tried OpensSesame launches an error saying that there is no module ctypes (I alreaddy installed inpout32.dll).

I am using OpenSesame is 2.9.7 Hesitant Heisenberg on a Windows 7 machine.

Any ideas? Recomendations?

Thanks in advance.

Felipe

sebastiaan

Hi Felipe,

Let's begin with the ctypes issue. This module is part of the Python standard library, so it should always be available. What script did you try exactly, and what is the exact error message?

Cheers,
Sebastiaan

faedojury

Hi Sebastiaan,

Thanks a lot for your fast answer...

So far I have the code line like this:

from psychopy import core
from psychopy.visual  import GratingStim, SimpleImageStim, TextStim, Circle
import numpy as np
from ctypes import windll

im.draw()  # im is a picture previosuly load in the prepare phase
myStimB.draw() # these mystim variables are different size elements ###
myStim2B.draw() 
myStim.draw()
myStim2.draw()
fixcross.draw()

foto_nr= (float(trigger)) # trigger is the delay for the TMS pulse (0-50-100 ms)

if trigger==0:
    port = 57360 # Port nr to read from. Names like COM1 etc do not appear to work
    dev = windll.inpout32 # Init the device
    val = dev.Inp32(port) # Read a value
    print "Read %d from port %d" % (val, port)
    win.flip()
    core.wait(0.1) #stimumus presented 100 ms
elif trigger==50:
    win.flip()
    core.wait(0.05)
    port = 57360 # Port nr to read from. Names like COM1 etc do not appear to work
    dev = windll.inpout32 # Init the device
    val = dev.Inp32(port) # Read a value
    print "Read %d from port %d" % (val, port)
    core.wait(0.05)
elif trigger==100:
    win.flip()
    core.wait(0.1)
    port = 57360 # Port nr to read from. Names like COM1 etc do not appear to work
    dev = windll.inpout32 # Init the device
    val = dev.Inp32(port) # Read a value
    print "Read %d from port %d" % (val, port)
else:
    win.flip()
    core.wait(0.1)

Using this code I get the following error message in the debug window:

Error while executing inline script

phase: run
item: Stimulus
line: 365
exception message: 
exception type: WindowsError

Traceback:
  File "dist\libopensesame\inline_script.py", line 155, in run
  File "<string>", line 87, in <module>
  File "ctypes\__init__.pyo", line 435, in __getattr__
  File "ctypes\__init__.pyo", line 365, in __init__
WindowsError: [Error 193] %1 nest pas une application Win32 valide

Could you help me here on what is wrong in the code in order to activate the parallel port? Is there any "easier" way to activate the port in between of the stimulus presentation?

Thanks again

Felipe

sebastiaan

Hi Felipe,

It's a bit unclear where exactly this error message comes from. Could you upload the entire experiment script, for example to http://pastebin.com?

And are you running 32 bit or 64 bit Windows 7? It kind of looks like a compatibility issue, but I'm not sure.

Could you help me here on what is wrong in the code in order to activate the parallel port? Is there any "easier" way to activate the port in between of the stimulus presentation?

I'm afraid not. The parallel port is very outdated, pretty much only still used by EEG researchers. It's always a bit of a problem to activate it under Windows. (But it can be done.)

Cheers,
Sebastiaan

faedojury

Hi Sebastiaan,
Thanks for your answer.
There are two ways toa ccess the TMS serial or parallel port. The parallel seems to be much easier since you just need to sens a "1" to open the port and activate the tms pulse and a "0" to close it again.
Of course, as I tried to explain before, this is not really straight foward with OpenSesame when i need to use different time delays after a picture presentation.
I let you the code I have written here:

http://pastebin.com/JCxAD00X

I am running it on a Windows 7 Profesisonal 32 bits machine.

Thanks a lot for your help

Felipe

faedojury

Hi there,

It seems that my pastebin link expired so I reupload in case somebody is interested to give me some help on this issue.

http://pastebin.com/AxDgLAqc

Thanks in advance for any idea or help to deal with this problem.

Felipe

sebastiaan

Hi Felipe,

Could you clarify a bit what exactly you're trying to do? From your description it sounds like you want to send triggers via the parallel port, but in your script you're reading from the parallel port.

Then we have the inpout32.dll error, which is quite mysterious. Is inpout32.dll actually present in the OpenSesame folder?

As an alternative, you could use dlportio.dll instead, either through a script or the parallel_port_trigger plugin? This is explained on this page:

• http://osdoc.cogsci.nl/devices/triggers/

Cheers,
Sebastiaan

faedojury

Hi Sebastiaan,
Thanks for your reply.

You re totally right with the issue inpout32.dll ... I want to send a "1" and not to read the port.

I need to present a picture and send a "1" to the parallel port either 0-100-150-200 ms after the picture presentation, and inmediately after close the port. (The "1" triggers the TMS pulse) .

The pluggin does not work because the parallel port of the computer is an external card whose number is E010 ... what means it is the port number 57360 in decimal values, and this number in not covered by the port plugin. Is there anyway to overcome this issue? Solving this problem would be the easiest way.

Then , the inline code of dlportio.dll would be the only option. Still, the problem is how to delay 0-100-150-200 ms to send the trigger.
Any idea how to overcome this issue with the inline code?

Thanks again.
Felipe.

LC74

Hi Felipe, did you solve the problem? I am facing something smilar right now with the need to trigger TMS and a too large parallel port number. Thanks! Luigi

faedojury

Hi Luigi,

Unfortunately I never found a solution . So I moved to another stimulus presentation software.

I hoipe you got better luck!

Cheers

F.

Jarik

Hi Luigi,

Managed to get this working with port = 0xD010 by downloading the Binaries only from http://www.highrez.co.uk/downloads/inpout32

Unpacking the Win32 folder.

Running InstallDriver.exe as Admin

Copy the file inpout32.dll from Win32 to c:\Windows\SysWOW64\ and rename it to dlportio.dll

Best,
Jarik

I tested this on Windows 7 64 bit with OpenSesame 3.0.7 using inline script: http://osdoc.cogsci.nl/devices/triggers/#using-dportiodll-in-a-python-inline-script-windows-only

with port = 0xD010 instead of port = 0x378

I used a StartTech PEX1PLP (PCI Express Parallel port card)