[mod.computers.apollo] apple laser writers

schooler@LOCUS.UCLA.EDU (Eve Schooler) (11/27/85)

We (UCLA AI Lab) have an apple laser writer which hooks up to
our network of apollos via an sio line.  While ADUS, Apollo
DOMAIN Users' Society, has public domain sources for the
USERn_xxx routines (which can be bound to /com/prsvr when 
fashioning one's own print server for a printer over an
sio line) and which have actually used for our printronix
running over an sio line, there are a few modifications which
need to be made to them in order for the apple laser writer
to work.  

In the meantime, the following set up is being used
	(i)    our postscript utilities pipe their output
	       to "prf -pr lw"
	(ii)   the link /dev/lw points to /dev/sio3 
	(iii)  "cron" (a domain/ix utility akin to the 
	       alarm_server) starts up on a regular basis
	       a shell script which ships all files beginning
	       with the "lw" suffix (which reside in the print
	       directory) to /dev/lw. Essentially, we say
	       something on the order of "cat filename >>/dev/lw"
	       (again, cat is a domain/ix utility which is akin
	       to catf)
	(iv)   the shell script also worries about setting up the
	       line correctly 
	       (/com/tctl -line 3 -echo -cvt_nl -sync -insync) and
	       about making sure no more than one process is trying
	       to send output to the device at a time.  A lock file
	       is established for this purpose. 

	
This seems to work just fine.  

	--Eve Schooler