wolfgang@wsrcc.uucp (Wolfgang S. Rupprecht) (10/31/90)
I just got me Genuine Adobe Postscript cartridge for my HP-II. Wow, what a lot of nice looking packaging and brochures. I'm impressed. Now for the observations. Adobe gives you an HP cartridge. Its easy to figure out what to do with that. They also give you a pile of messy-dos disks. Huh? How do I feed this to my SPARC? ;-) As far a I can tell there is a lot of hemming and hawing in the documentation about running it with Lotus this and Microsoft that. Problem is, there *isn't* a scratch of information about the basics. Eg. What do I send down the line to get the printer to toggle between Postscript and HP modes. Adobe says there is an IBM PC program on one of the disks to do just that. Surely Adobe isn't planning on making us all buy a PC emulator just to run their cartridge. Anyone know where I can get a little *real* documentation? Now for the technical problems: When I tip to the printer from the SPARC (SLC/SunOS 4.0.3 in case it matters) I can issue the command "executive\n". I get the start of the startup banner, and then blam! Control-G battles flair. Nice to see that two toys get along so well together. ;-) I assume this is the result of some sort of ^S-^Q war that escalates and overflows a stack. PS>quit^M PostScript(r) Version 52.3^M Copyright (c) 19^C^M PS>^M PS>^M PS>foo^M %%[ Error: undefined; OffendingCommand: foo ^G^G^^M %%[ Error: limitcheck; OffendingCommand: ^G^G^G^G^M %%[ Error: limitcheck; OffendingCommand: ^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^M %%[ Error: limitcheck; OffendingCommand:^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G ^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G ^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G ^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G ^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G ]%%^M PS>^C^M PS>^M PS>quit^M (the line of ^G's was broken up by hand - it was all on one line) Anyone have any experience with this? I did notice that he only way to get this guy unwedged is with a ^C sent down the line. Any error would print the first error "Error: undefined; ..." and then continue with an infinite chorus of "Error: limitcheck; ...". Hmm. I'm stumpted. The Sun isn't normally echoing anything down the line. Tip is being run with no parity. It isn't a case of a totally broken cartridge. The postscript works quite will when hooked up directly to a wyse-75. (Wyse-75's are very fast terminals though.) Perhaps the Sun is sending too many ^S's to the printer? I wonder if the printer's uart is getting a data overrun from all the ^S flung it's way? Could this data overrun is interpreted as a bad command? Questions/answers, anyone? -wolfgang -- Wolfgang Rupprecht uunet!wsrcc!wolfgang (or) wsrcc!wolfgang@uunet.uu.net Snail Mail Address: Box 6524, Alexandria, VA 22306-0524
kusumoto@chsun1.uchicago.edu (Bob Kusumoto) (11/06/90)
wolfgang@wsrcc.uucp (Wolfgang S. Rupprecht) writes: >I just got me Genuine Adobe Postscript cartridge for my HP-II. Wow, >what a lot of nice looking packaging and brochures. I'm impressed. >Now for the observations. Adobe gives you an HP cartridge. Its easy >to figure out what to do with that. They also give you a pile of >messy-dos disks. Huh? How do I feed this to my SPARC? ;-) The floppy disks are mostly for the MS-DOS Printer Control Program which is a TSR that sends control codes to the cartridge to autoswitch between PS and PCL modes. This isn't that useful if you intend to stick to PS all the time (esp with the TRANSCRIPT software, there's really no need to autoswitch). >As far a I can tell there is a lot of hemming and hawing in the >documentation about running it with Lotus this and Microsoft that. >Problem is, there *isn't* a scratch of information about the basics. >Eg. What do I send down the line to get the printer to toggle between >Postscript and HP modes. Adobe says there is an IBM PC program on one >of the disks to do just that. Surely Adobe isn't planning on making >us all buy a PC emulator just to run their cartridge. Anyone know >where I can get a little *real* documentation? do you really need to switch between PCL and PS modes? I'd be the first to tell you that you're probably better off just turning off the printer and taking out the cartridge and turning the printer on again (well, almost as long, the switch involves telling the cartridge to turn itself off and do a PCL self test, then do whatever PCL stuff, then go through a PS self test when the next job comes through. It's about a minute or two for each of the self tests). >Now for the technical problems: >When I tip to the printer from the SPARC (SLC/SunOS 4.0.3 in case it >matters) I can issue the command "executive\n". I get the start of >the startup banner, and then blam! Control-G battles flair. Nice to >see that two toys get along so well together. ;-) I assume this is the >result of some sort of ^S-^Q war that escalates and overflows a stack. > PS>quit^M > PostScript(r) Version 52.3^M > Copyright (c) 19^C^M > PS>^M > PS>^M > PS>foo^M > %%[ Error: undefined; OffendingCommand: foo ^G^G^^M > %%[ Error: limitcheck; OffendingCommand: ^G^G^G^G^M > %%[ Error: limitcheck; OffendingCommand: ^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^M > %%[ Error: limitcheck; OffendingCommand:^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G > ^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G > ^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G > ^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G > ^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G^G ]%%^M > PS>^C^M > PS>^M > PS>quit^M > (the line of ^G's was broken up by hand - it was all on one line) >Anyone have any experience with this? I did notice that he only way >to get this guy unwedged is with a ^C sent down the line. >Any error would print the first error "Error: undefined; ..." and then >continue with an infinite chorus of "Error: limitcheck; ...". Hmm. >I'm stumpted. The Sun isn't normally echoing anything down the line. >Tip is being run with no parity. It isn't a case of a totally broken >cartridge. The postscript works quite will when hooked up directly to >a wyse-75. (Wyse-75's are very fast terminals though.) Perhaps the >Sun is sending too many ^S's to the printer? I wonder if the >printer's uart is getting a data overrun from all the ^S flung it's >way? Could this data overrun is interpreted as a bad command? >Questions/answers, anyone? hmmm, are you using the transcript software? Adobe created this package to convert text and graphics into PS. Sun currently sells it for Adobe on all their machines. Of course, they have a newer software package (Newscript?) that's suppose to be better but I don't know. If you're not using the transcript package, there's not much hope. Bob Bob Kusumoto | Find the electric messiah! Internet: kusumoto@chsun1.uchicago.edu | The AC/DC God! Bitnet: kusumoto@chsun1.uchicago.bitnet | - My Life with the Thrill Kill UUCP: ...!{oddjob,gargoyle}!chsun1!kusumoto | Kult, "Kooler than Jesus"
shiva@well.sf.ca.us (Kenneth Porter) (11/13/90)
kusumoto@chsun1.uchicago.edu (Bob Kusumoto) suggested using Transcript to solve a communications problem. I think you're missing the point, Bob. Transcript won't work until one has a solid serial communication channel. The best way to get this working is to use a terminal emulator like tip or kermit to talk to the printer. Only after this works does one have any chance of making Transcript work. As Don Lancaster likes to point out, you should use a terminal emulator with an ASCII upload capability to send PS files from PC's and Apple II's, since you then get to see the backchannel traffic (ie. error messages, output from print and ==, etc.). On a Unix box, this info is usually just redirected into a log file somewhere. Ken (shiva@well.sf.ca.us)
kusumoto@chsun1.uchicago.edu (Bob Kusumoto) (11/15/90)
shiva@well.sf.ca.us (Kenneth Porter) writes: >kusumoto@chsun1.uchicago.edu (Bob Kusumoto) suggested using >Transcript to solve a communications problem. I think you're >missing the point, Bob. Transcript won't work until one has a >solid serial communication channel. The best way to get this >working is to use a terminal emulator like tip or kermit to >talk to the printer. Only after this works does one have any >chance of making Transcript work. wait, maybe I missed something, like this printer wasn't actually connected to the Sparc. If you have the TRANSCRIPT software, you can compile it to create the proper files so that one of the two serial ports in the back of the sparc will be able to talk to the printer without any fuss about using tip or kermit or any other communications product. I'm also assuming that the people who use the printer are actually logged into the machine in question, which of course, requires the users to be at terminals (dumb or smart) and be connected to it using whatever means necessary (where terminal programs make sense). Those MS-DOS diskettes are only useful if you are at an MS-DOS machine connected directly to the printer (either its serial port or over a PC network like Novell Netware or Bayan Vines). It's almost useless if the printer is connected to the sparc and you're printing from the sparc (although it makes tons of sense if your at a PC with the sparc as a print server, but the software is only good on a PC). Bob -- Bob Kusumoto | Find the electric messiah! Internet: kusumoto@chsun1.uchicago.edu | The AC/DC God! Bitnet: kusumoto@chsun1.uchicago.bitnet | - My Life with the Thrill Kill UUCP: ...!{oddjob,gargoyle}!chsun1!kusumoto | Kult, "Kooler than Jesus"
shiva@well.sf.ca.us (Kenneth Porter) (11/21/90)
kusumoto@chsun1.uchicago.edu (Bob Kusumoto) writes: > You can compile [Transcript] to create the proper files so that > one of the two serial ports in the back of the sparc will be > able to talk to the printer without any fuss about using tip or > kermit or any other communications product. What I meant was that to get the connection going in the first place, one needs to know the proper port settings. The easiest way to establish this is to use tip while editing /etc/remote to find the framing and handshake settings that work. These can then be copied into the ms field in the printcap file. Perhaps Transcript has some intelligence that allows it to dynamically fiddle with the port settings until it finds the correct one, but this is a pretty sophisticated thing to do programmatically. Do you know where Transcript has this capability, Bob, or is it necessary to figure this out manually and tell Transcript the values with a config file? > Those MS-DOS diskettes are only useful if you are at an MS-DOS > machine connected directly to the printer (either its serial > port or over a PC network like Novell Netware or Bayan Vines). > It's almost useless if the printer is connected to the sparc > and you're printing from the sparc I use the MS-DOS version of Adobe fonts on my 386i. Once I had the files in a Unix directory, using DOS Windows to copy the files from the MS-DOS diskettes, I then unwrapped the font files, which were in the compressed binary format, into a downloadable text format using the program I posted a couple of weeks ago. The AFM files were then fed into another of my programs to generate width data for Borland Sprint (a DOS program). Ken (shiva@well.sf.ca.us)