spworley@athena.mit.edu (Spaceman Spiff) (01/08/91)
I have a really old wide-carrage Epson FX-286 dot matrix printer hooked up to the parallel port on my 3000. I have no problems printing text or graphics, and I complement Commodore on how easy it was to configure! I use the Epson-XOld printer driver in the 2.0 preferences. My problem: When printing large ( 3 or more pages) files, I keep getting a "Printer trouble: check printer and cabling" requestor. Meanwhile, the printer is merrily chugging away, no glitch, no pause, nothing. If I click on the "resume" button, the requestor goes away. The REALLY annoying part is that the requester returns about once a minute! I have to click each time. I don't know the cause, but my guess is that the printer in hi-quality mode is SO SLOW (1 page every minute and a half) that AmigaDos thinks that there must be a hangup in passing the data along, so puts up the requestor. My question: any fixes?? I cannot print long program listings without being at the computer, so its pretty important and not just an annoyance. What can I do do fix this? I'd appreciate any help from anyone on the net. Email if you have any ideas. Thanks for the help! -Steve ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Steve Worley spworley@athena.mit.edu ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
david@starsoft.UUCP (Dave Lowrey) (01/09/91)
In article <1991Jan8.103115.17498@athena.mit.edu>, Spaceman Spiff writes: > > I have a really old wide-carrage Epson FX-286 dot matrix printer > hooked up to the parallel port on my 3000. I have no problems > printing text or graphics, and I complement Commodore on how > easy it was to configure! I use the Epson-XOld printer driver in > the 2.0 preferences. > > My problem: When printing large ( 3 or more pages) files, I keep > getting a "Printer trouble: check printer and cabling" requestor. > Meanwhile, the printer is merrily chugging away, no glitch, no pause, > nothing. If I click on the "resume" button, the requestor goes away. > The REALLY annoying part is that the requester returns about once a > minute! I have to click each time. > > I don't know the cause, but my guess is that the printer in hi-quality > mode is SO SLOW (1 page every minute and a half) that AmigaDos thinks > that there must be a hangup in passing the data along, so puts up the > requestor. > > My question: any fixes?? I cannot print long program listings without > being at the computer, so its pretty important and not just an annoyance. > What can I do do fix this? > > I'd appreciate any help from anyone on the net. Email if you have any > ideas. Thanks for the help! > What is happening is that the driver is "timing out" in trying to "contact" your printer. It happens sometimes with SLOW printers. It also happens if your printer is "offline". There is an easy way to correct this: Using a "Hex Editor" (I use newzap), edit the EpsonXOld printer driver (after, of course, saving a backup copy of it). At Offset 0x95, you will find the hex value 1E. This is the drivers timeout value (30 seconds). It is actually a word, starting hex 1B, with a value of 0x0000001E. You can modify this value to anything you like. But, be reasonable. If your printer REALLY does get messed up some time, you will have to wait "timeout" seconds before getting a chance to cancel the printout. After modifying and saving the file, you will need to re-boot (or load a different driver, try to print with it, then re-load your EpsonXOld driver) in order to get a new copy of the driver into memory. Let me know if you have any problems. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- These words be mine. The company doesn't care, because I am the company! :-) Dave Lowrey | david@starsoft or {uhnix1,lobster}!starsoft!david Starbound Software Group | Houston, TX | "Dare to be stupid!" -- Weird Al Yankovic
peterk@cbmger.UUCP (Peter Kittel GERMANY) (01/09/91)
In article <1991Jan8.103115.17498@athena.mit.edu> spworley@athena.mit.edu (Spaceman Spiff) writes: > >My problem: When printing large ( 3 or more pages) files, I keep >getting a "Printer trouble: check printer and cabling" requestor. >Meanwhile, the printer is merrily chugging away, no glitch, no pause, >nothing. If I click on the "resume" button, the requestor goes away. >The REALLY annoying part is that the requester returns about once a >minute! I have to click each time. > >I don't know the cause, but my guess is that the printer in hi-quality >mode is SO SLOW (1 page every minute and a half) that AmigaDos thinks >that there must be a hangup in passing the data along, so puts up the >requestor. You could try to modify the printer driver to provide a higher timeout value. Copy the file to a new name (to not spoil the original) and use Newzap to patch the value at offset 0095. In my version of the driver, there is currently a $1E which stands for 30 seconds. You might increase this to the double or more. Perhaps it helps. -- Best regards, Dr. Peter Kittel // E-Mail to \\ Only my personal opinions... Commodore Frankfurt, Germany \X/ {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!cbmger!peterk
peterk@cbmger.UUCP (Peter Kittel GERMANY) (01/09/91)
In article <187dab1f.ARN2577@starsoft.UUCP> david@starsoft.UUCP writes: > >At Offset 0x95, you will find the hex value 1E. This is the drivers timeout >value (30 seconds). It is actually a word, starting hex 1B, with a >value of 0x0000001E. A little bit of nit picking: It really is a word, not a longword, so it is TWO bytes, starting at offset $94, reading $001E. -- Best regards, Dr. Peter Kittel // E-Mail to \\ Only my personal opinions... Commodore Frankfurt, Germany \X/ {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!cbmger!peterk