doug@wacsvax.OZ (Doug Robb) (07/25/88)
I have an ast turbo laser hooked onto (via serial line) a vax750 running 4.3BSD. I can spool off files using lwf (posted on net a while back) and so flow control etc seems to be working (in fact I know its working as I've hung a terminal off the line instead of the printer and checked it). The problem: To print files from a msword document (nfs'ed up from pc) requires the msword postscript prolog file to be sent to printer once. After I send this file (the prolog) it refuses to print more than 3 pages of any msword document. Documents shorter than this are printed ok most of the time but not always. It usually gives me "error: undefined: offending command : flushing rest of job " etc at random spots in the file. Now the SAME prolog with SAME printer and SAME test file works fine if the printer is hooked directly to a pc and driven through ms-word. The prolog writes to non volotile memory so I could understand how it could screw up ditrof, lwf etc files but to screw up its own files? By the way the header loads up without errors. I have checked out flow control as I have said so what else could be happening? Has anyone encountered problems with loading/running ms-word documents from a unix host? Any thoughts about this strange behaviour would be appreciated. Thanks doug@wapsyvax.oz
les@chinet.chi.il.us (Leslie Mikesell) (07/28/88)
In article <808@wacsvax.OZ> doug@wacsvax.OZ (Doug Robb) writes: > >Has anyone encountered problems with loading/running ms-word documents >from a unix host? Any thoughts about this strange behaviour would be >appreciated. Thanks doug@wapsyvax.oz Is your flow control set to restart on any character or just ^Q? There are several things that can trigger postscript printers to generate some verbose output, one of which is re-loading a prolog that checks for its own existance in memory. If you don't have a process reading these characters they can appear at strange times and mess up the flow control. Likewise, if the ^D at the end of the file doesn't make it to the printer (or the spooler tacks on a form-feed) the timeout error message might affect the next file. Les Mikesell
cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer) (07/29/88)
In article <808@wacsvax.OZ>, doug@wacsvax.OZ (Doug Robb) writes: > > I have an ast turbo laser hooked onto (via serial line) a vax750 running > 4.3BSD. I can spool off files using lwf (posted on net a while > back) and so flow control etc seems to be working (in fact I know > its working as I've hung a terminal off the line instead of the printer > and checked it). > > The problem: > > To print files from a msword document (nfs'ed up from pc) requires > the msword postscript prolog file to be sent to printer once. > After I send this file (the prolog) it refuses to print more than 3 pages > of any msword document. Documents shorter than this are printed > ok most of the time but not always. > It usually gives me "error: undefined: offending command : flushing > rest of job " etc at random spots in the file. > Now the SAME prolog with SAME printer and SAME test file > works fine if the printer is hooked directly to a pc and driven through > ms-word. The prolog writes to non volotile memory so I could understand > how it could screw up ditrof, lwf etc files but to screw up its own > files? By the way the header loads up without er> out flow control as I have said so what else could be happening? > > Has anyone encountered problems with loading/running ms-word documents > from a unix host? Any thoughts about this strange behaviour would be > appreciated. Thanks doug@wapsyvax.oz No. But thea couple of weeks while debugging my Epson MX-80 to PostScript trans- lator, and I found that it would generate the "ioerror" messagehow far in it would fail, but how far still varied in some non-obvious way. I spoke to other users of the AST TurboLaser/PS, as well as an engineer at AST (who was having trouble persuading his colleagues), and all were aware that very long PostScript files would occasionally fail. It looks to me like the problem is a dropped or garbled character, and was readily reproducible with either parallel or serial interface. I didn't use the Appletalk interface, but some of my customers say they have had no problem with Appletalk -- only parallel and serial. Note that this may not be a problem for all AST TurboLaser/PS printers. The difference between UNIX and PC may simply be a characteristic of how fast the data is transmitted to the printer. Clayton E. Cramer