dudkl@dcatla.UUCP (Danny K. Llewallyn) (05/04/89)
I have been playing around with invoking Diablo emulation mode
via a PostScript program. The way I wish to use it is to prepend
it to an ASCII file for printing. I have seen several other
methods for printing ASCII files most of them doing so by prepending
an ASCII emulator to the file. I do have a problem though with
carriage return not working. Line feeds work but carriage returns
do not. One question I have (for Glenn I guess) is "Do all
PostScript printers support Diablo emulation?". The program appears
below. Any help and comments are appreciated.
/dodiablo{
{
statusdict
begin
(Courier) % Normal Font
(Courier-Bold) % Bolding Font
10 % CPI (10,12,15)
1 % 1 - Auto Linefeed 0 - No Auto Linefeed
/diablo load
end
exec
}
stopped
{
showpage
}if
}def
dodiablo
Now is the time for the ASCII file to follow.
But when I print on the next line, it only
performs NL and not CR
\004
Thanks,
Danny
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
.signature files suck
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------batcheldern@hannah.dec.com (Ned Batchelder, PostScript Eng.) (05/05/89)
> Do all PostScript printers support Diablo emulation?
No, and even those that do may not do it via the same operators.
Put simply, if something isn't described in the red book (except for
appendix D in old red books), then it isn't necessarily in all PostSCript
printers (or other interpreters).
--Ned Batchelder, Digital Equipment Corp, BatchelderN@Hannah.DEC.comgreid@adobe.com (Glenn Reid) (05/05/89)
In article <18223@dcatla.UUCP> dudkl@dcatla.UUCP (Danny K. Llewallyn) writes: >I have been playing around with invoking Diablo emulation mode >via a PostScript program. The way I wish to use it is to prepend >it to an ASCII file for printing. I have seen several other >methods for printing ASCII files most of them doing so by prepending >an ASCII emulator to the file. I do have a problem though with >carriage return not working. Line feeds work but carriage returns >do not. One question I have (for Glenn I guess) is "Do all >PostScript printers support Diablo emulation?". The program appears >below. Any help and comments are appreciated. Well, first of all, no, not all printers support Diablo emulation. Emulators are something that the OEM customer asks us to add to the implementation. It is obviously not a standard part of the PostScript language. I think that LaserJet emulators are more common than Diablo. > [ code deleted ] > >But when I print on the next line, it only >performs NL and not CR >\004 The reason you are having trouble is that the printer thinks you are executing a regular old PostScript program. The CR NL pairs you send it with the data are treated as a single EOL character by the interpreter, which treats these as just white-space characters. The serial protocol filters them out before they even get to the interpreter. I'm not sure of the details of the Diablo protocol, but if it needs ^D, ^S, ^Q, or ^T for anything, you are out of luck again, because these are caught and interpreted by the protocol handler. You really need the equivalent of "binary" mode for an emulator. Normally (in more recent printers, at least) you invoke the Diablo emulator with the "setsoftwareiomode" operator in statusdict (if it's there; it's not a standard operator). This turns off the serial line protocol handler and treats the channel essentially as "binary" (modulo parity settings and things like that). This passes CR and LF through transparently, and the emulator works as expected. Since the channel is binary in emulator modes and won't recognize the normal end-of-transmission signals on the serial line (good old Control-D), it has no reasonable way of knowing when the job is done. I believe that the special sequence ESC-DEL-0 (escape, delete, 0) will be recognized by the emulator code and will return the inpterpreter to its normal, PostScript-interpreting state. I hope this helps somewhat. Look through your documentation from the manufacturer for anything about "setsoftwareiomode". That will help if your printer has it. Glenn Reid Adobe Systems