david@bdt.UUCP (David Beckemeyer) (08/31/89)
Does anyone out there use a Apple Imagewriter II printer with
Magic Sac? I have never been able to get this to work. Magic
Sac just hangs. I've tried all sorts of combinations.
I know the printer is basically physically connected because I
can dump raw ASCII text from the ST (in TOS mode) to the printer.
I am using a Apple DIN cable with a null-modem to the ST. I have
a breakout box on the line too.
Here's the results I have got so far:
1) Tell Magic Sac that I have a serial printer. Choose the printer port
for printing in the Mac app. (e.g. MacWrite) using the Chooser DA.
Nothing happens when you tell the Mac app. to print. The RS-232 breakout
box shows no activity.
2) Same as above, but choose the modem port using the Chooser DA. Now
Magic Sac tries to print using the serial port (yea!). The problem is
that the Imagewriter tries to use hardware flow control. The Imagewriter
appears to want to use line 20 (DTR) for flow control. The Null-modem
I'm using passes line 20 to 6 and 8; the ST side sees pins 6 and 8 drop
(DSR and DCD) when the printer drops 20. This didn't work. I also tried
wiring it so that the ST also saw pin 5 (CTS) drop, but that didn't work
either. It appears that the Magic Sac won't do flow control on the
serial port. If it does do flow control, will somebody please tell me
what pin it wants to use?
I've tried other combinations with results fitting into one of the above
two cases. It doesn't make a damned bit of difference what Mac
application program I use; anything you print that's big enough to
overflow the Imagewriter's buffer causes it not to work right. The
Imagewriter is so slow, it doens't take much (about 5 lines of text will
do it).
Anyone have any ideas? What about a parallel to serial converter? What
about one of those Olympic Imagewriter emulators that have a parallel
port built-in? Anybody want to buy an Imagewriter II?
--
David Beckemeyer (david@bdt.UUCP) | "I'll forgive you Dad... If you have
Beckemeyer Development Tools | a breath mint."
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