vluu@milton.u.washington.edu (Khiet Vu) (10/31/90)
I have a question....is it possible to hook up an IBM clone to the Apple Laserwriter II and able to print normal text file...? Also, I have another question. I want to do a screen dump to an apple laserwriter printer. How would I go about doing this? I heard postcript language is normally use in this situtation.? Where can I get some additional information about postcript language. Thanks in advance for you advice and comments. Hien Luu Physiology and Biophysics Lab
vgopal@cbnewsc.att.com (venu.p.gopal) (11/01/90)
In article <10244@milton.u.washington.edu>, vluu@milton.u.washington.edu (Khiet Vu) writes:
!
! I have a question....is it possible to hook up an IBM clone to the
! Apple Laserwriter II and able to print normal text file...?
Yes. Hook up the serial ports using a null modem adapter. Two problems
you will run into after this; a) the printer uses xon/xoff handshaking
to throttle data to it, and DOS cannot do this directly b) everything
to the printer needs to be in postscript (unless you use the emulation, but,
then why do you need postscript ?)
! Also, I have another question. I want to do a screen dump to an
! apple laserwriter printer. How would I go about doing this?
! I heard postcript language is normally use in this situtation.?
There is a screen dump progrma that generates postscript directly called
Screen-to-postscript.
!
! Where can I get some additional information about postcript language.
! Thanks in advance for you advice and comments.
! Hien Luu Physiology and Biophysics Lab
To solve problem a) i.e. handshaking, there are two methods. One is to
use a device driver that implements xon/xoff on the serial port, I believe
this may be available from SIMTEL. The second method is to capture the
print output in a file, and send this file to the printer using a program
such as comsend. Comsend may be available from SIMTEL.
To solve problem b) there are a number of programs that will take an
ASCII file and convert it postscript for printing - the one that we use
here is calles "text2ps" (public domain) - may also be available from
SIMTEL (other such programs may be available from SIMTEL).
Screen-to-Postscript (SCRtoPS) will send its output directly to the
printer on the com port using xon/xoff protocol. It costs $49.95 and
is available from Offe Enterprises, 708-357-6679. It can also save its
output to an encapsulated postscript file. It does graphics and text incl
line/box chars.
Hope that helps.
Venu P. Gopal UUCP: ..!att!cbnewsc!vgopal Internet: vgopal@cbnewsc.att.com