[comp.dcom.lans] Printing with Western Digital's ViaNet

mathmyka@cosmo.UUCP (Mathias Myka) (07/24/88)

I am using a small StarLAN network with Western Digital's
ViaNet operating system. When using the print redirection feature
of this system, all data that is to be printed, is buffered until
either the program that causes the print output is terminated,
or the user presses they CTRL-ALT-PrtSc keys. I would like to
start printing automatically while the application program is still
running. I suppose that I have to include an interrupt into the
program, but this is not documented in the WD manuals.
Can anyone out there help me ?
Mathias Myka
(mathmyka@cosmo.uucp)

les@chinet.chi.il.us (Leslie Mikesell) (07/25/88)

In article <1908@cosmo.UUCP> mathmyka@cosmo.UUCP (Mathias Myka) writes:
>I am using a small StarLAN network with Western Digital's
>ViaNet operating system. When using the print redirection feature
 >of this system, all data that is to be printed, is buffered until
 >either the program that causes the print output is terminated,
 >or the user presses they CTRL-ALT-PrtSc keys. I would like to
 >start printing automatically while the application program is still
 >running. I suppose that I have to include an interrupt into the
 >program, but this is not documented in the WD manuals.
 >Can anyone out there help me ?

I'm not sure about ViaNet, but with AT&T's starlan network, closing the
printer device will flush the output and start the spooled job.  Either
closing and re-opening the device you are using or duping the filehandle
and closing one copy should work.  In Basic, you would probably have to
specifically open an lpt?: device yourself so you can control the closing
instead of using lprint.
 
 Les Mikesell