peters@yang.earlham.edu (12/14/90)
Can anyone out there write a procedure that simulates the action of a ^P (ctrl-P) when pressed at a DOS prompt? It should turn on 'print mode' so that all writes to the screen are simultaneously echoed to the printer. Another ^P should toggls print mode off again. All the obvious methods fail. This one has stumped some very sharp Turbo Pascal and DOS gurus. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance. Peter Suber. Depts. of Philosophy, Computer Science. Earlham College. Richmond, Indiana 47374. 317-983-1214. peters@earlham.bitnet.
peter@cs.umu.se (Peter Lundberg) (12/14/90)
In article <5994@yang.earlham.edu> peters@yang.earlham.edu writes: > > Can anyone out there write a procedure that simulates the action of >a ^P (ctrl-P) when pressed at a DOS prompt? It should turn on 'print mode' >so that all writes to the screen are simultaneously echoed to the printer. >Another ^P should toggls print mode off again. > Well, the keyword here is DOS, if each and every one of the programs that were to be used with this utility would use DOS in text mode for doing screen output, this would not be hard to do. But they don't and won't. That's why there is no way to trace screen output, like for example on a VT100 terminal. So don't waste your time, it it was possible the PC would have such a key on the keyboard, (as terminals often have) rgds. Peter Lundberg.
simpson@aplcen.apl.jhu.edu (Simpson David) (12/21/90)
>In article <5994@yang.earlham.edu> peters@yang.earlham.edu writes: >> >> Can anyone out there write a procedure that simulates the action of >>a ^P (ctrl-P) when pressed at a DOS prompt? It should turn on 'print mode' >>so that all writes to the screen are simultaneously echoed to the printer. >>Another ^P should toggls print mode off again. >> Ctrl-Print Screen (^Print Screen) does this. David Simpson
abcscnuk@Twg-S5.uucp (Naoto Kimura (ACM)) (12/23/90)
In article <1990Dec21.020843.6273@aplcen.apl.jhu.edu> simpson@aplcen (Simpson David) writes: ]>In article <5994@yang.earlham.edu> peters@yang.earlham.edu writes: ]>> ]>> Can anyone out there write a procedure that simulates the action of ]>>a ^P (ctrl-P) when pressed at a DOS prompt? It should turn on 'print mode' ]>>so that all writes to the screen are simultaneously echoed to the printer. ]>>Another ^P should toggls print mode off again. ]>> ] ]Ctrl-Print Screen (^Print Screen) does this. ] ] David Simpson This only works as long as you *DON'T* use the crt unit, either directly or indirectly (through another unit). This is because Crt grabs control of the standard input and output files which Dos and the BIOS uses to handle the printer echo. One way to give control of input and output back to Dos is to reassign the file variables to the Dos file handles by using the following: ... Assign(Input,''); Reset(Input); Assign(Output,''); ReWrite(Output); ... Not only does this allow printer echoing but it also allows input and output redirection. The bad part of this since Crt now has lost control of the input and output file variables, it won't handle windowing or scrolling, so your screen gets all messed up. Of course, there's yet another approach: Try looking at my Logger unit. You can find it on either simtel-20 or uwasa.fi in a file called NKTOOLS.ZIP. Since the source code is available, you can adjust its behavior to suit your needs. The one thing you have to make sure is that the Logger unit appears as the last unit in the USES clause. //-n-\\ Naoto Kimura _____---=======---_____ (abcscnuk@csuna.csun.edu) ====____\ /.. ..\ /____==== // ---\__O__/--- \\ Enterprise... Surrender or we'll \_\ /_/ send back your *&^$% tribbles !!