ric@ace.sri.com (Richard Steinberger) (12/09/89)
I have a DEC LN03+ laser printer that I would like to connect to the serial port of a DEC3100 or a Multiflow. The printer needs to be sent a set of control characters as an initialization string before each job. The particular string sent determines whether the printer enters its Tektronix mode, portrait mode, landscape mode, selects a font, defines TAB stops, and some other things, as appropriate. What I would like to do is put the set of escape strings in a text file as follows: LABEL1:<ESC>a<ESC>b23; LABEL2:<ESC>b<ESC>b34; LABEL3:.... LABEL4:.... where <ESC> is the escape character, and the above are just examples. The filter program would receive an argument specifying the LABEL, then send out the string to the right of the label's colon, followed by the byte stream from the file. My question: Is this a possible or reasonable approach? If so, how would lpr pass the LABEL arguments to the filter program? Should the filter send output to stdout, or elsewhere? Is there a particular manual/document that has more details on this? The above scheme seems like it ought to be extensible to many brands of printers. Has anyone developed anything like this; is there another approach I should consider; or are printer filters best left to "experts"? thanks for any help/suggestions. Please reply to me directly, as I am not a regular reader of this bboard. regards, ric steinberger ric@ace.sri.com ric@rml2.sri.com (415) 859 - 4300