pfa@cbnews.att.com (Paul F. Albrecht) (06/06/90)
Here's a question for anyone with experience with an Apple LaserWriter NT
connected to a PC (AT&T 6386) running DOS. Any suggestions would be greatly
appreciated!
I've been using PageMaker and Corel Draw to generate create simple graphics
for over a year now and is usually works. However, frequently the printer
will print nothing and PageMaker or Corel Draw will give an error message
saying:
Couldn't print to COM1
If I have the PS error handler downloaded, I will get at error page saying
ERROR: ioerror
OFFENDING COMMAND: xxx
The offending command is often "--nostringval--" or some number. It appears
to be random. My first thought is I have a flow control problem, but I've
verified that both the LaserWriter and the PC are configured for:
9600 baud, no parity, XON/XOFF handshaking, 7 data bits, 1 stop bit
The problems seem related to the complexity of the graphics, but not
exclusively so. I've had the same document generate an error once and
then print OK later. I've switched cables and connectors with no apparent
change.
Am I simply running out of memory in the printer? Is there any way to
verify this. Also, since I've upgraded to DOS 4.0.1, I can't use the
PRINT command to send PS files to my COM1 port - why? Is there a good DOS PS
print program I should get? Also, I've been told that many DTP programs
like PageMaker generate inefficient postscript. Is there a postscript
optimizer I could use to possibly simplify my postscript files?
For reference, I'm using DOS 4.0.1, and PS version 47.0.
Paul Albrecht
AT&T Bell Labs
pfa@cbdkc1.att.com
614-860-7710woody@chinacat.Unicom.COM (Woodrow Baker) (06/10/90)
In article <1990Jun5.205048.28817@cbnews.att.com>, pfa@cbnews.att.com (Paul F. Albrecht) writes: > Here's a question for anyone with experience with an Apple LaserWriter NT > connected to a PC (AT&T 6386) running DOS. Any suggestions would be greatly > appreciated! > > I've been using PageMaker and Corel Draw to generate create simple graphics > verified that both the LaserWriter and the PC are configured for: > > 9600 baud, no parity, XON/XOFF handshaking, 7 data bits, 1 stop bit > First of all, the PC does not support XON/XOFF handshaking unless you have a special printer driver such as superspool installed. You need to either use a spooler that can handle XON/XOFF such as superspool, or else use DTR/DSR handshaking. If your printer can handle paralell, use that. > > Am I simply running out of memory in the printer? Is there any way to > verify this. Also, since I've upgraded to DOS 4.0.1, I can't use the > PRINT command to send PS files to my COM1 port - why? Is there a good DOS PS > print program I should get? Also, I've been told that many DTP programs You can't print directly to com1 under dos. The only way to do this is to redirect com1 to lpt1: and print to lpt1: (or lpt2:) mode lpt1:=com1:9600,n,8,1,p does it quite nicely FOR DTR/DSR only. Secondly, for pity's sake, TRASH DOS 4.XX NONE of the versions that I have seen are bug free. DON'T LET DOS 4.XX anywhere NEAR a machine. likely your problems will flat vanish if you drop back to DOS 3.x There are many and varied problems with DOS 4.0. Many of my coworkers have tried it, and invariable have had to go back to dos 3.x. Cheers Woody
tj@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca (Terry Jones) (06/11/90)
>> I've been using PageMaker and Corel Draw to generate create simple graphics >> verified that both the LaserWriter and the PC are configured for: >> 9600 baud, no parity, XON/XOFF handshaking, 7 data bits, 1 stop bit >First of all, the PC does not support XON/XOFF handshaking unless you have >a special printer driver such as superspool installed. You need to either >use a spooler that can handle XON/XOFF such as superspool, or else use >DTR/DSR handshaking. If your printer can handle paralell, use that. While the first and last part of this paragraph are true, PC DOS does not support Xon/Xoff handshake protocol and if your printer has parallel then use it, You do NOT need to use the spoolers Woody mentions. Windows (Which is what you ARE using if you are using Corel OR PageMaker) does support Xon/Xoff protocol quite reliably. I offered the person a few suggestions but I do NOT think any further software is needed here. If further software were needed I would recommend a public domain program called LPTCOM1 which redirects data sent to LPT ports out a serial port and handles Xon/Xoff properly. It isn't perfect but it is also free. Also, check YOUR DOS MANUAL carefully. Many versions of DOS, eg Compac, DO support Xon/Xoff directly. >Secondly, for pity's sake, TRASH DOS 4.XX NONE of the versions that >I have seen are bug free. DON'T LET DOS 4.XX anywhere NEAR a machine. >likely your problems will flat vanish if you drop back to DOS 3.x > >There are many and varied problems with DOS 4.0. Many of my coworkers >have tried it, and invariable have had to go back to dos 3.x. > >Cheers >Woody While Woody has often provided little gems of information I do not believe this is one of them. First off I suspect that DOS 4 is being called buggy mostly because many programs that are poorly written had problems when run under DOS 4. There are also some VERY good reasons to use DOS 4 like having a 300 meg drive called C: instead of C: D: E: F: G: H: I: J: K: L:!!! I personally have beenrunning DOS 4.00 until last friday when I went to 4.01 because I found my first program that failed under dos 4.00 (and worked fine under 4.01 BTW!) The major programs such as COrel and PageMaker (ie Windows Apps) work fine as do most of the other programs like 123, dBase, Harvard, etc. For god sake if every time we got a piece of software with a bug in it we put it back in the package we MIGHT have made it as far as CPM by now! (But I really doubt even that!) Lets try offering some helpful information instead of just bashing. tj
pgd@bbt.se (P.Garbha) (06/11/90)
In article <1317@chinacat.Unicom.COM> woody@chinacat.Unicom.COM (Woodrow Baker) writes: >Secondly, for pity's sake, TRASH DOS 4.XX NONE of the versions that >I have seen are bug free. DON'T LET DOS 4.XX anywhere NEAR a machine. >likely your problems will flat vanish if you drop back to DOS 3.x > >There are many and varied problems with DOS 4.0. Many of my coworkers >have tried it, and invariable have had to go back to dos 3.x. > What are the problems with DOS 4.01? we just starting to use it because of windows 3.0. DOS 3.3 is not the greatest, for the single fact that it does not allow hard-disks greater than 32M, and i strongly dislike having 5 or 10 partitions on one disk.
woody@chinacat.Unicom.COM (Woody Baker @ Eagle Signal) (06/12/90)
In article <1990Jun11.114856.1095@bbt.se>, pgd@bbt.se (P.Garbha) writes: > In article <1317@chinacat.Unicom.COM> woody@chinacat.Unicom.COM (Woodrow Baker) writes: > > > > >There are many and varied problems with DOS 4.0. Many of my coworkers > >have tried it, and invariable have had to go back to dos 3.x. > > > > What are the problems with DOS 4.01? we just starting to use it because > of windows 3.0. DOS 3.3 is not the greatest, for the single fact that > it does not allow hard-disks greater than 32M, and i strongly dislike having > 5 or 10 partitions on one disk. O.K. for a bit of background: MS-DOS version 1.25 was a very simple OS. It only supported floppies, and as such, it used a 12 bit fat table. MS came out with DOS 2.1 or 2.0. This supported hard disks. To do so, they expanded the FAT to 16 bits. Now, since the number of copies of 1.25 was very small, and most of the programs were rather simple in nature, that caused only minor problems. Now along comes IBM and re-writes Dos 3.3 (AT this point: I have heard 2 stories, 1. IBM wrote it and licensed it back to MS, 2. DR wrote it and licensed it to MS, I don't know which is correct). The major advance for DOS 4.x was the support for larger hard disks. Who ever wrote it, decided that the way to do this, was to change the FAT table size. With 15-35 MILLION copies of DOS floating around, versus 10-20 thousand, the impact of doing this was much worse. I remained truely puzzled as to why DOS 4.x seems to have problems. Our commercial software package would not work. One of my clients is a CPA firm that uses a commercial software package. They had DOS 3.x. Put Dos 4.x on a machine, and when they got an upgrade, the software failed. Not only failed on various machines, but also failed on DOS 3.3 (the install program had munged the DOS 3.3 disk). After 4 or 5 shipments of new software, and various package configurations (to keep magnetic things) from messing with the software, they casualy mentioned to the software maker that they were using 4.01. They were advised to remove it immediatly. they did, the problems went away. They were also using wordstar. Files would flat dissapear from the floppies etc.etc. Our software product was written with Lattice 2.0. Due to lots of compiler dependent code, it is not feasable to migrate it to another 'c' compiler. It won't run reliabley under dos 4.x. I think, after looking at some programming documentation, that I have figured out why some of the problems exist. Under Dos 4.0, certain function calls were modified. Specificaly the CX register is now used for disk functions where it was not used before. If it has a value in it, I think a -1, AND you are running under DOS 4.x, Dos expects one of the other registers (I think DX) to be pointing to a parameter block in memory. If cx is NOT -1 then DX holds something else. Since, under 3.3, CX was not used, software often left the contents of CX as it was, or actualy save temporary values in it. If it happens to be -1 AND the code was written under 3.3, then the DX (or whatever it is) is not going to be pointing to what it should, and boom. Anyway, all of the problems that I have seen when people move to DOS 4.x vanish when the move is made back to dos 3.3. I think that the culprit is the extensions to the disk services. I only briefly glanced at one of the function call specs for DOS 4.x, so I may have some of my registers off, but the general operation, I think is correct. Cheers Woody
woody@chinacat.Unicom.COM (Woody Baker @ Eagle Signal) (06/12/90)
Sorry about this. Philip, got your letter via us-mail. don't have your usenet address. Please email me a note so I can send you the password reset code. Cheers Woody
brown@vidiot.UUCP (Vidiot) (06/12/90)
In article <1990Jun11.021320.1298@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca> tj@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca (Terry Jones) writes:
<
<Also, check YOUR DOS MANUAL carefully. Many versions of DOS, eg Compac,
<DO support Xon/Xoff directly.
I have Compaq DOS 3.3 and didn't find any mention of XON/XOFF in the mode
commands. Where does Compaq mention it?
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