john@maui.cs.ucla.edu (g janakiraman) (06/10/91)
Hi! I am a novice DOS user, and I would like some advice and suggestions in doing the following: I have a commercial package that has a pull down menu option to print something. I want to write a program that will capture what is to be sent to the printer, forward it over a modem to a remote PC, and print it on the remote PC. The concerns I have are: 1. Is it possible to capture what is being sent to the printer? If yes, how? 2. Can I have it forwarded on the modem, even if I am running the commercial package? 3. What should be done at the remote PC, so that it sends the stuff that it receives on the modem to the printer? Would it work even if someone is using that remote PC? Any help would be appreciated. If such a program, or any part of it already exists, any pointers to the source code would be great. Kindly send replies to john@cs.ucla.edu Thanks. John
anthony@convex.csd.uwm.edu (Anthony J Stieber) (06/11/91)
In article <1991Jun9.203110.23914@cs.ucla.edu> john@maui.cs.ucla.edu (g janakiraman) writes: [...] >The concerns I have are: >1. Is it possible to capture what is being sent to the printer? > If yes, how? >2. Can I have it forwarded on the modem, even if I am running the > commercial package? >3. What should be done at the remote PC, so that it sends the stuff > that it receives on the modem to the printer? Would it work even That you want to print over "phone network" doesn't really matter, unless you mean you're running Netware or something over the modem. All you have to do is reroute your printer port to a serial port. This should be documented in your MS-DOS manual. Something like "mode com1:2400n81e" will configure com port 1 for 2400bps, no parity, 8 bits, 1 stop bit, return error for busy port. Change these settings as appropriate for your modem. Then do a "mode lpt1:=com1:" to redirect lpt1 to com1. This will cause all printer data that would normally go to lpt1 to go out the serial port instead. At the remote end you could run a terminal program like Kermit or Procomm, Telix, etc, to do an ASCII file receive and send it all to the printer. Or you could something like the above: use mode to set the com port, then use "copy com1 lpt1:" to copy everything that comes from the com port to the printer. Yet another way would be to hook the modem directly to the serial port on the printer (if it has one). Then you won't need a computer, just a special cable. There are several programs that will capture data sent to a printer port into a file. If the above doesn't work for you for some reason, you could use one of these and transfer the file to the remote machine later. -- <-:(= Anthony Stieber anthony@csd4.csd.uwm.edu uwm!uwmcsd4!anthony Psion Mailing List subscriber submissions psion ----------\ the (human) moderator psion-owner -------+--@csd4.csd.uwm.edu subscriptions and file requests psion-request ----/