jsin@island.seas.ucla.edu (John Sin) (03/25/90)
We have an Apple LW NT hooked up to our Unix machine, that prints out a single page after *every job* with a timeout error message. This is annoying as heck and wastes paper. So, I had the brilliant idea to set the timeout values to 0. All three of them. Now, we don't get the extra page at the end, but the printer goes into a certain state where you have to send a control-D or power cycle the machine before it will print anymore jobs. Also, if you set things like /manualfeed on, you have to turn off/on the printer or set it back to default. We have number of other Apple LaserWriters (NTX, and LW+) that are connected to the same unix server, and do not have any problems. I believe that they echo back the timeout error to the server, not print them out on a paper. Is this done by the error handler? I know that someone downloaded an error handler routine to this particular printer for that purpose (to print it out, and not echo back to the server), but I'd have thought that default error handler will be restored once the printer is powercycled. I'm just fishing for answers here. I wonder if this rings any bells with anyone? I'd like to reset the timeouts to the default value, and NOT have the printer print out this extra page of error message. If I need to download another error handler, does anyone have a reasonable (and commented, if possible :-) ehandler.ps? I don't know much about postscript programming or postscript printers, so any thoughts, comments, hints, would be greatly appreciated. This problem has been driving several people up the wall. John Sin -- John (Jonghoon) Sin (Above opinions are my own and etc, etc, etc...) UCLA SEASnet Facilities InterNet: jsin@seas.ucla.edu 2567 Boelter Hall UUCP: ...!(uunet,ucbvax,rutgers)!seas.ucla.edu!jsin Los Angeles, CA. 90024 (213) 825-3556
izumi@violet.berkeley.edu (Izumi Ohzawa) (03/25/90)
In article <482@lee.SEAS.UCLA.EDU> jsin@island.seas.ucla.edu (John Sin) writes: > >a paper. Is this done by the error handler? I know that someone >downloaded an error handler routine to this particular printer for that >purpose (to print it out, and not echo back to the server), but I'd have >thought that default error handler will be restored once the printer is >powercycled. > The error handler should not persist if the printer is power-cycled. I wonder if there is any 'cron' job down-loading the error handler to the printer periodically. Here's a suggestion to people who are using the error handler. Stop using it, and connect a CRT terminal to LW instead, and save trees. We use a standerd CRT terminal to see any error messages coming out of LaserWriter. You can just branch off pin-2 and pin-7 of the LaserWriter serial connection to the CRT terminal, and adjust baud rate etc appropriately. Then you have an instant 'status monitor' for the printer. You can enhance the redability/usefullness by letting the spooler send additional information before sending each PostScript job. It can send something like: (------\n) print (Date: Mar 24, Time: 12:33, Print job from user: uselogin\n) print flush Control-D Then, if any error occurs, error messages are printed right after the above line so that users will know what happned. I find that, unless I want to track stack info, simply displaying the error messages as above is all I want. Not only this saves trees, it will make good use out of old CRT terminals. Izumi Ohzawa, izumi@violet.berkeley.edu