perry@MCL.UNISYS.COM (Dennis Perry) (12/04/89)
I seem to have a problem printing out a spread sheet from 2020 to my LA50 in compressed mode (i.e. 132 columns) I have the LA50 set up to 16 char per inch and set up 2020 to print a width of 132 or some what less. The first page prints out fine, the second page print after about 10-15 lines garbage. A line will start out fine and then backward question marks will print out for the rest of the line and the CR will get lost, etc. After about 10 lines of this the print stops, even if it is not complete. Any ideas? I know that backward question marks often indicate the wrong parity, but one good page and then garbage.. Also, it works fine in the normal 80 char per page (but then I have to cut and past the pages together) Thanks dennis
jms@tardis.Tymnet.COM (Joe Smith) (12/08/89)
In article <8912032300.AA02025@LANAI.MCL.UNISYS.COM> perry@MCL.UNISYS.COM (Dennis Perry) writes: >LA50. The first page prints out fine, the second page print >after about 10-15 lines garbage. A line will start out fine and >then backward question marks will print out for the rest of the line >and the CR will get lost, etc. After about 10 lines of this the >print stops, even if it is not complete. This failure mode is very common with LA50 printers. It indicates that the printer tried to send Control-S (XOFF) to the computer, but the computer kept sending. Reverse question marks are an indication that the printer's buffer overflowed. The usual causes of this are: 1) The computer is not configured to respond to XON/XOFF from the printer. 2) The cable to the printer is defective, and not passing pin 2 back. 3) The motherboard in the printer has gone defective and transmits garbage. Case #3 is what I see a lot of. It was determined by connecting a dumb terminal (one that does not respond to escape sequences) to the LA50 with a null modem and sending ESCape [ c to the printer. It is supposed to respond with ESCape [ ? 1 7 c which is the product identification. (See page 40 of the LA50 Programmer Reference Manual.) When my printers went out, they returned the right number of characters, but the wrong ASCII codes. In this state, the LA50 sends some random garbage character to the computer instead of Control-S, leading to the buffer overflows. They fixed it by swapping out the entire control/logic board. -- Joe Smith (408)922-6220 | SMTP: JMS@F74.TYMNET.COM or jms@gemini.tymnet.com BT Tymnet Tech Services | UUCP: ...!{ames,pyramid}!oliveb!tymix!tardis!jms PO Box 49019, MS-D21 | PDP-10 support: My car's license plate is "POPJ P," San Jose, CA 95161-9019 | humorous dislaimer: "My Amiga speaks for me."