tth@unc.cs.unc.edu (Terry Hudgins (NCNB -- sfw)) (02/04/90)
Does ANYONE know how to hook up an Apple LaserWriter IINTX to a Sun
Sparcstation 1?
What I've done (besides talking to Apple & Sun):
1) Apple LaserWriter IINTX dip switches:
1=up=9600baud, 2=dn=rs232serial, 3&4=up=PostscriptBatch, 5&6=up=xon/xoff
2) Cable (simple null-cable for xon/xoff, ttya="A" port on SS1):
pins 1 to 1 for chassis ground (what the heck!)
2 to 3 send/rcv, 3 to 2 send/rcv, 7 to 7 signal grnd
3) SunOS 4.0.3c stty command to set printer port:
in .login:
stty 9600 -evenp cs8 -cstopb -raw ixon -ixany </dev/ttya
since cmdshells reset to 7bit evenp when they start up, I
issue that same stty as above inside SunView cmdshell...
and confirm that settings stick with stty -a </dev/ttya.
4) cat lwinit >/dev/ttya where lwinit is vi-created postscript prog:
serverdict begin 0 exitserver
statusdict begin
25 9600 64 setsccbatch
end
[note: LaserWriter LED blinks about 15 seconds on this]
5) cat lwset >/dev/ttya where lwset is from back of lw manual:
/Helvetica findfont 14 scalefont setfont
30 500 moveto
(The Options number for the 25-pin port is )show
statusdict begin 25 sccbatch 10 string cvs show
pop showpage
[note: LaserWriter LED blinks about 20 sec, never prints]
Questions:
A) I do want Postscript Batch, not Interactive don't I?
B) Apple said 7-even was typo in manual, use 8-noparity. True?
C) Sun says to buy their $1800 Transcript software. Why do
I need $1800 in software to eject a page from a ps printer?
I understand that I might want pssun to convert rasters to
to ps or nscript to pretty-print ascii files but surely I
don't need Transcript to dump to /dev/ttya, do I?
D) Are the postscript programs above "encapsulated" and thus in
need of "postscript dictionary headers"?
_______________________ Terry Hudgins UNC-CH Epidemiology
tth@cs.unc.edu, (919)966-4186
any help GREATLY appreciated!gopstein@rutgers.edu (Rich Gopstein) (02/08/90)
Before we bought Transcript (for the conversion routines), we set up a
print que to print postscript files directly to our LWII/NTX. The single
most useful thing I did when setting it up was to connect a spare VT220
(any asynch terminal will do) in parallel with the printer's SendData
pins. This allowed all printer errors to be easily visible -- which made
solving problems like "It blinked, but it didn't print" much easier.
The cable looks like this:
Printer VT220
2 ----------+-------------- 3
7 ------------+------------ 7
3 --------+ | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
2 3 7
Sun
This is probably a flagrant violation of the RS-232 spec, but it has
worked for several years on a couple of different Apple Laserwriter
printers.