Psychopy and TMS

[Byurakn Ishkhanyan]

Hi everyone,

Does anyone know how to send triggers from Psychopy to the TMS stimulator?

My script is working (the usual parallel port problem is solved). With the parallel port the Psychopy computer is connected to a Signal computer, which in turn sends the triggers to a TMS stimulator. The connections are correct (the stimulator stimulates when we mechanically touch the parallel port), so the problem must be in Psychopy. Does anyone have an idea what the issue could be?

I am using builder mode in 64 bit Windows 7.

This is the code I have in the code component:

from psychopy import parallel

parallel.setPortAddress(0x0378)

Thank you for your help in advance.

Regards,

Byurakn

[Richard Höchenberger]

Hi Byurakn,
do you still need assistance here?

Richard

[Byurakn Ishkhanyan]

Hi Richard,

Yes, I do.
Thanks!

Byurakn

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[Richard Höchenberger]

All right, so you were stating that "[your] script is working (the
usual parallel port problem is solved)." What exactly does that mean,
how did you verify that PsychoPy is actually accessing the parallel
port correctly?

Richard

[Byurakn Ishkhanyan]

In the beginning I got an error when trying to run the script and I googled to find out that it was a common issue. I installed the .dll files and the script started working. I am not sure though if Psychopy is accessing the parallel port correctly (probably it doesn't). I've tried all the three parallel port addresses the computer has (0xD020, 0xD030 and 0×D050) but neither was able to send the trigger, so I'm thinking there should be some other problem.

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[Richard Höchenberger]

Does your computer actually have three parallel ports?

Have you tried placing the inpout32.dll in the same folder as your
PsychoPy script?

Does the Signal computer report which pins on the parallel input are
set to high/low at any time?

[Richard Höchenberger]

Oh, and: What code do you use to actually send the triggers?

[Byurakn Ishkhanyan]

Yes, the inpout32.dll is in the same folder (the script didn't work without it).
As for the Signal computer, I haven't checked it. How do I do it?

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[Richard Höchenberger]

On Fri, May 6, 2016 at 1:00 AM, Byurakn Ishkhanyan <byur...@gmail.com> wrote:
> As for the Signal computer, I haven't checked it. How do I do it?

I wouldn't know :) I thought maybe it has a display that can be used
to easily tell which pins are set to high/low, which we could abuse as
a parallel port tester.

What command(s) do you use to send the actual triggers?

[Jonathan Peirce]

I wonder why you needed to put inpout32 into the script folder. You should have been able to install it as a driver and leave it wherever it was installed

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[Richard Höchenberger]

On Fri, May 6, 2016 at 1:05 PM, Jonathan Peirce <jon.p...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I wonder why you needed to put inpout32 into the script folder. You should
> have been able to install it as a driver and leave it wherever it was
> installed

I realized it's often easier to simply place it in the script folder
than to find the correct windows system folder :) (system32/wow64
confusion, anyone?) :D

[Byurakn Ishkhanyan]

Hi Richard,

I guess in order to give accurate answers to your questions I need to be in the lab to have access to the code and everything. I'll do it next week. Thanks a lot for your help!

Jonathan, there was no way of making the script work. Then somewhere in this group I read someone suggesting to put inpout32.dll in the same folder. When I did it, I stopped receiving the error message.

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[Byurakn Ishkhanyan]

Hi Richard,

Thanks again for your help. In order to send the triggers, I'm using a p-port component and a code component in builder mode. You can find the screenshots of the parameters and the code attached. I will try to figure out if I can find the pins set to high/low on the Signal computer.

[Byurakn Ishkhanyan]

The parallel port cable from the PsychoPy computer is connected to the CED (which in turn is connected to the Signal computer) via a BNC connector. Could there be a mistake here? (although again, the connections seem to work because everytime I mehcanically touch the parallel port, the triggers are sent to the Signal computer, which in turn sends them to the TMS stimulator. The issue is that it doesn't work when the experiment is running). I couldn't find any pin information on the Signal software. 

On Friday, May 6, 2016 at 1:11:11 PM UTC+2, Richard Höchenberger wrote:

[Richard Höchenberger]

Hi Byurakn,

I think I've been using some kind of (Python-based??) parallel port
tester a while back, which also used inpout32; it can be used to
manually set certain pins to high and low on the PsychoPy computer. If
this indeed produces TMS triggers, then we know for sure that your
computer can indeed access the parallel port correctly, and that the
problem(s) must be in PsychoPy or your code somewhere. I will try to
find out which software I used, and will get back to you tomorrow or
Friday.

EDIT:
Just googled, and I think THIS is the software I used:
http://www.downtowndougbrown.com/2013/06/parallel-port-tester/
Had to place inpout32.dll in the same folder as the executable. See if
it works for you (and get any binaries check at virustotal.com before
actually executing them ;))

Cheers,

Richard

[Byurakn Ishkhanyan]

Hi Richard,

Thanks! I did as you told me and the attached picture is what I get. 

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[Richard Höchenberger]

Hi,

On Wed, May 11, 2016 at 5:02 PM, Byurakn Ishkhanyan <byur...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks! I did as you told me and the attached picture is what I get.

so the parallel port tester is not working on your computer. I wouldn't know how to fix that.

I don't know of any other software to easily set parallel port pins to high and low on Windows, and I am very reluctant (read: unwilling) to proceed looking into your PsychoPy code as long as we don't even know whether your parallel port is functioning properly at all. These things are a pain to debug remotely. Please ask a tech-savvy person in your lab to assist you with that basic verification. :)

Parallel ports in general are an ancient legacy from the last century. I hope they will disappear soon, as they're causing nothing but trouble with modern computers. If you have the money, I would strongly suggest to get something like a LabJack to replace your parallel port. Will save you lots of time and nerves.

All the best,

    Richard

[Richard Höchenberger]

Hello Byurakn,

have you been able to make any progress on this issue?

Cheers,

    Richard

[Byurakn Ishkhanyan]

Hi Richard,

unfortunately, no progress. I have asked the engineers to help me but they couldn't find the issue. So we will probably convert the experiment to some other language.

Byurakn

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[Richard Höchenberger]

Hi Byurakn,

On Sun, May 22, 2016 at 11:19 PM, Byurakn Ishkhanyan <byur...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I have asked the engineers to help me but they couldn't find the issue. So
> we will probably convert the experiment to some other language.

oh, that's very unfortunate :( But parallel ports can be really
annoying! Like I said, they're legacy interfaces, and one should keep
in mind that the support is declining. Parallel port support has also
been marked as deprecated in Matlab's Data Acquisition Toolbox many
years ago already (don't know if it has even been removed meanwhile)
-- and that's in a hugely successful commercial product! The struggle is
most often just not worth it: upgrade to some present-day hardware if
you can.

All the best,

Richard

[Oliver Clark]

There are some quite good parallel to USB converters available.  For instance the Black Box Toolkit USB TTL adapter installs as a com-port which you can access with serial.Serial().  Had success using this to send signals to a BIOPAC MP36.  They're around £200 and would save you having to upgrade the whole system

[Richard Höchenberger]

On Tue, May 24, 2016 at 12:52 PM, 'Oliver Clark' via psychopy-users
<psychop...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
> There are some quite good parallel to USB converters available. For
> instance the Black Box Toolkit USB TTL adapter installs as a com-port which
> you can access with serial.Serial(). Had success using this to send signals
> to a BIOPAC MP36. They're around £200 and would save you having to upgrade
> the whole system

Nice, didn't know about these. There's also the LabJack products,
https://labjack.com/products

I personally prefer National Instruments DAQ boards, but they are
usually much more expensive. They can be controlled from within Python
via PyLibNIDAQmx: https://github.com/pearu/pylibnidaqmx

Best,

Richard