ijk@hou5e.UUCP (Ihor Kinal) (06/13/85)
To summarize, here's what is needed to make this thing work: 1). If you have a port card, and want to install it on the parallel port, you must do a mknod (see 3b2 manual plus the "Expanded Input/Output Capability Manual." WARNING - all releases AFTER 1.0 have a major device of 1 for the port card, not 6 as specified in the manual. Thanks to someone on the net for pointing this out. The minor device is still 4. 2). The cable provided is wired incorrectly. On the computer side, the parallel connector has pins 31 and 30 incorrectly strapped to ground. (This is the side that has the KS number stamped on it). On the printer side, the pins are mirror-imaged: yes, Virginia, that means that you have to desolder each wire, and connect it to the other side. 3). The line spooling installation package is very user-friendly, but expert-intolerable. By that I mean if everything goes by the book, installation is a snap. Since unforeseen circumstances CANNOT POSSIBLY happen, there's very little (NONE????) documentation on what to do if something goes wrong or you want to do things a little differently. Specifically, after installing several different options, I went back a tried to overwrite what I did before - the install procedure didn't work. I then had to exit and remove the tag files in usr/spool/lp/something before I could do what I wanted. ALSO, the spooler software never mentions the parallel port as a choice for installation, although it will accept it. If you install the spooler, the printer works fine. 4). If you try to cat a file to the printer, it seems to ignore carriage returns. The tech support people have come up with the following solution: create a shell script that reads the following - ( stty opost onlcr -ocrnl -onlret 0<&1; cat $* ) > /dev/tty15 where tty15 happens to be what you called the parallel port. Ihor Kinal hru3c!ijk