ebert@parc.xerox.com (Robert Ebert) (05/19/91)
The situation: SE/30, Pre-AppleTalk DeskWriter, 2.1 driver from sumex-aim, System 7.0 With virtual memory off, I can print OK, but... after printing the display is pretty messed up. It looks like imaging is being done in color, but it's being interpolated to 1 bit. Icons look funky, and the selected icon hi-liting from the finder is messed up. This "effect" starts after the first DW dialog box appears, and continues until the system is rebooted. Occassionally, the finder will crash with a Bus Error when doing a shutdown. This same effect can be reproduced on a Mac II with a color display (but no DW attached.) Simply select the DW (or the AppleTalk DW) from the chooser, then do a Page Setup to get the dialog... With virtual memory on, when I try to print, I get between 1 and 2 inches of output followed by "Datacom buffer overrun - no DTR handshaking.", then the printer lights blink sequentially. I can cancel printing with command-., but, well, printing is impossible. Checking the manual, the datacom error can be caused by cable problems. Since it prints fine under system 6.0.7, that's *not* the problems. HP Tech support says they've fully tested with system 7.0, and refer me to a dealer. That is, they refuse to acknowledge that the driver is the source of the problem. ComputerWare hasn't tried this yet... Has anyone gotten this to work properly? Can you print to a DW with VM on? If you can't, please call HP support at (208) 323-2551 and hassle them. --Bob
irwin@sealy.uchicago.edu (Mark Irwin) (05/19/91)
In article <1991May18.194140.6948@parc.xerox.com> ebert@parc.xerox.com (Robert Ebert) writes: >The situation: >SE/30, Pre-AppleTalk DeskWriter, 2.1 driver from sumex-aim, System 7.0 > >With virtual memory off, I can print OK, but... after printing the display >is pretty messed up. It looks like imaging is being done in color, but >it's being interpolated to 1 bit. Icons look funky, and the selected icon >hi-liting from the finder is messed up. This "effect" starts after the >first DW dialog box appears, and continues until the system is rebooted. >Occassionally, the finder will crash with a Bus Error when doing a shutdown. > >This same effect can be reproduced on a Mac II with a color display (but >no DW attached.) Simply select the DW (or the AppleTalk DW) from the chooser, >then do a Page Setup to get the dialog... > >With virtual memory on, when I try to print, I get between 1 and 2 inches >of output followed by "Datacom buffer overrun - no DTR handshaking.", then >the printer lights blink sequentially. I can cancel printing with command-., >but, well, printing is impossible. > >Checking the manual, the datacom error can be caused by cable problems. >Since it prints fine under system 6.0.7, that's *not* the problems. > >HP Tech support says they've fully tested with system 7.0, and refer me >to a dealer. That is, they refuse to acknowledge that the driver is the >source of the problem. ComputerWare hasn't tried this yet... > >Has anyone gotten this to work properly? Can you print to a DW with VM on? >If you can't, please call HP support at (208) 323-2551 and hassle them. > > > --Bob I've had the same problem with the same setup. One thing that is slightly different that the problem with the weird looking icons has disappeared (at least for a while). I wonder if these might be due to an init conflict that Bob and I haven't been able to find yet. I guess I should call HP Tech support. If anybody knows what is causing this problem I would appreciate knowing why. Mark Mark Irwin Dept of Statistics, Univ of Chicago irwin@galton.uchicago.edu irw1@midway.uchicago.edu mark@stat.ubc.ca
Charlie.Mingo@p4218.f421.n109.z1.FidoNet.Org (Charlie Mingo) (05/19/91)
ebert@parc.xerox.com (Robert Ebert) writes:
RE> Has anyone gotten this to work properly? Can you print to a DW with VM
RE> on? If you can't, please call HP support at (208) 323-2551 and hassle them.
It works fine on my IIci, running system 7 and 24-bit VM (haven't tried 32
yet). How much real memory do you have (I use 8Mb real and 13 virtual)?
Try backing up your system file and reinstalling from virgin floppies. It
sounds like you've been corrupted. (I assume you've already adjusted Chooser.)
* Origin: mingo@well.sf.ca.us mingo@cup.portal.com (1:109/421.4218)ebert@parc.xerox.com (Robert Ebert) (05/22/91)
Charlie.Mingo@p4218.f421.n109.z1.FidoNet.Org (Charlie Mingo) writes: >ebert@arisia.xerox.com (that's me) writes: >> Has anyone gotten this to work properly? Can you print to a DW with VM >> on? If you can't, please call HP support at (208) 323-2551 and hassle them. > > It works fine on my IIci, running system 7 and 24-bit VM (haven't tried 32 >yet). How much real memory do you have (I use 8Mb real and 13 virtual)? > > Try backing up your system file and reinstalling from virgin floppies. It >sounds like you've been corrupted. (I assume you've already adjusted Chooser.) Okay, I tried doing a minimal install for SE/30 onto a HD floppy, and added the chooser and DeskWriter 2.1, freshly downloaded from sumex-aim. The problem did not happen when I booted from this disk. Of course, I could not try VM... Spurred on by this apparent success, I trashed everything in my system folder and tried installing again. I installed (regular) system software for SE/30 and LaserWriter printer. I then added the DeskWriter driver and rebooted, and both the display glitch without VM and the Datacomm buffer overrun error with VM persisted. I can't imagine a cleaner setup than this! I also went to ComputerWare in Sunnyvale and looked at their IIsi running System 7.0. With the AppleTalk DeskWriter driver the display glitch also manifested itself. I did not actually try printing. The display glitch is definitely non-fatal, and doesn't cause any crashing I can see. The bus error on shutdown turned out to be caused by QuicKeys. (Yes, I know it's not really compatible, but how can you live without it?!) I'm beginning to suspect the display glitch is a weird interaction with 32 bit quickdraw. Can anyone supply a list of the things in the System under a standard install that aren't there under a Minimal install? I didn't call HP today with this new info, but I will tomorrow... look for a followup, and call and complain if you also have a problem! That number again: (208) 323-2551. --Bob P.S. Doing an install onto a floppy on a one-drive Mac sure was a treat! Aside from all the thumb twiddling and disk swapping, I discovered a truly interesting "error" condition. On two of the disk swaps, the disk would get ejected and the "please insert <other disk>" alert would appear. Almost immediately after this, a "please insert <just ejected disk>" dialog appeared! The second dialog was placed above the first, so you could see both of them... I tried to snap the screen so I could post this on my wall at work, but the screen snap FKEY apparently wasn't available. What a situation! It was easy to clear up, though, just follow the top-most alert's instructions.
ngo@tammy.harvard.edu (Tom Ngo) (05/22/91)
Earlier today, Robert Ebert <ebert@parc.xerox.com> wrote: ebert> >ebert@arisia.xerox.com (that's me) writes: >> Has anyone ebert> gotten this to work properly? Can you print to a DW with VM >> ebert> on? If you can't, please call HP support at (208) 323-2551 and ebert> hassle them. I have had the same prob with my IIci, serial DW. Both symptoms were there--the datacomm error and the strange color mapping on my 1-bit monochrome screen. I called HP support at that number, and the fellow told me they'd been getting lots of calls about this. HP now acknowledges the problem, but says it MIGHT be the fault of Sys 7.0 for the following reason: an early version of Connectix's Virtual was incompatible with the DW driver until Connectix fixed their software. He admitted that it might be HP's software but did not make any promises. He wondered why VM should interact with the serial line. What do you think? Is it a timing problem, due to the difference in access times between RAM and VM? -- Tom Ngo ngo@harvard.harvard.edu 617/495-1768 lab number, leave message
neff@hp-vcd.HP.COM (Dave Neff) (05/23/91)
Regarding DeskWriter 2.1 driver and system 7. Yes, there are 2 main problems with the DeskWriter driver and system 7. 1. The display glitch. I wont go into details as to how it happens, but printing with the DeskWriter under system 7 will make some of your finder icons look a bit funny. This is being fixed, but I have no date as to when a new version of the driver will be out. 2. Datacomm overrun with virtual memory turned on. When VM is on, the Mac insists on sending many K of data after we drop DTR. Since we only allow for 128 bytes to come in after we drop DTR, this leads to an overrun. Evidently while swapping VM pages, the Mac doesn't notice the DTR is deasserted for a fairly long period of time. We reported this problem to Apple with beta versions of stystem 7 and hoped it would not be present on the final version. Unfortunately it is. I really don't see how this could be a printer driver bug. We have hooked analyzers to the line and confirmed that the printer is dropping DTR but the Mac continues to send large amounts of data. There is a third more minor problem -- no spooler is presently available. Third party spoolers are being modified to support system 7, but none that I know of are presently available. For now, if you use a DeskWriter with System 7 the only way to use VM is to use the DeskWriter in AppleTalk mode. But this will cost you the price of a couple of PhoneNet connectors (about $40) and of course is not an option for those of you with old serial only versions. I am sure the display glitch will soon be fixed, but the VM problem is more of a concern. Dave Neff neff@hpvcfs1.HP.COM