hi all,
I am thinking about interfacig a simple walking mechanism(with some 4-5 stepper motors) to the parallel port.
My questions;
1.What is the use of the pin STROBE??

"The interface will be rather "dumb", where the computer will have to produce all signals for motor movement. This will keep the hardware from getting too complicated, while still allowing a fair degree of software control. By "dumb interface", I mean if you want a motor to make 50 steps, you have to send the right 1-byte command to the data bus, and then send 50 STROBE operations. Also, all motors are stepped at once, so if three motors need to be stepped 20,30,and 45 times respectively, you would have to send the appropriate 1-byte command to the data bus, STROBE 20 times, send a new 1-byte command, STROBE 10 more times, then send a final command, and STROBE 15 times. A "smart" interface would be nice, but beyond the scope of this project. " in http://www.woodyweb.ca/~woody/controller.html
This appears to be very simple,but I dont understand what STROBE is doing here...please help.

2.Should I procede with VC++ or GCC??I mean is there any specific adv/disadvantage??I am very new to programming with GCC.

Thanks in advance,
Arun.

On a parallel interface the strobe signal indicates that the data lines are ready to be read by the receiver. The receiver must acknowledge that it has read the data before another character can be sent. As far as I can see, you need to send the same character many times, so it is not necessary to change the data buffer, just reassert the strobe signal as many times as that character needs to be sent.
That is, the character to order one step is put into the data buffer, and then the strobe asserted fifty times, so that the motor receives fifty command characters.

Thanks,I think I have got it for now.
--arun

Now what abt the second question?Should I proceed with VC++ or GCC?VC++ is definitely easy,since lots of sample programs are available in the net on the same topic,and I dont know the corresponding library/functions in GCC.Please help.