[comp.sys.mac.hardware] ImageWriter II making undesired HEX

jbg@wsc-sun.boeing.com (James Glidewell) (06/27/90)

In article <88500020@uxh.cso.uiuc.edu> johnsone@uxh.cso.uiuc.edu writes:
>
>/* Written  1:43 am  Jun 23, 1990 by potency@violet.berkeley.edu */
> > My ImageWriter II has been occasionaly making HEX dumps rather than
> > printing text.

This is a *feature* not a bug. :-)  If the select button is depressed when the
IW II is powered up, the printer goes into a debug mode which prints out those
hex digits. It is VERY easy to accidentally push down both buttons when one is
in a hurry to turn the printer on.


-- 
Jim Glidewell
jbg@wsc-sun.boeing.com
uw-beaver!bcsaic!wsc-sun!jbg

derosa@motcid.UUCP (John DeRosa) (06/30/90)

long@mcntsh.enet.dec.com (Rich Long) writes:


>/* Written  1:43 am  Jun 23, 1990 by potency@violet.berkeley.edu */
> > My ImageWriter II has been occasionaly making HEX dumps rather than
> > printing text.

I have a home setup where I routinely dial-in to my work 
Macintosh network (via Shiva Netmodem/NetSerial and Dial-in
software).  To do this, appletalk must be turned on.  This 
always uses the Printer port.  If a printer is plugged into
it, it will spit out lots of odd alpha-numerics (random).

Oddly, the imagewriter driver will redirect output to 
the modem port automatically.  The first time that happened,
I was stumped for quite a while until I figured this out.

The bottom line is, if the hex is in neat columns then the
printer is in its test mode.  Does it stop after a while
or go forever until you turn the printer off?  Test mode
goes on forever.  It may be that you are hitting the test 
switch when turning on the printer or the printer is spontaneously
going into test mode (which is a hardware fault).

IF the hex is random and occurs during statup, then it is
probably the appletalk problem.

Good Luck.  Let me know what the problem ultimately was.
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=    John DeRosa, Motorola, Inc, Cellular Infrastructure Division           =
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