From owner-freebsd-questions Wed Jan 10 07:46:18 1996 Return-Path: owner-questions Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) id HAA11685 for questions-outgoing; Wed, 10 Jan 1996 07:46:18 -0800 (PST) Received: from aleph.lpi.ac.ru (aleph.lpi.ac.ru [147.45.17.5]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) with SMTP id HAA11678 for ; Wed, 10 Jan 1996 07:45:54 -0800 (PST) Received: from td.lpi.ac.ru by aleph.lpi.ac.ru with ESMTP id SAA02116; (8.6.8/D) Wed, 10 Jan 1996 18:41:27 +0300 Received: by td.lpi.ac.ru id SAA25539; (8.6.11/D) Wed, 10 Jan 1996 18:35:12 +0300 To: questions@freebsd.org Message-ID: Organization: Department of Theoretical Physics. Lebedev Physical Institute. From: "Maksim Stolyarov" Date: Wed, 10 Jan 1996 18:35:12 +0300 (MSK) X-Mailer: Mail/@ [v2.40 FreeBSD] Subject: Re: printer and parallel port problems Lines: 80 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-questions@freebsd.org Precedence: bulk > Date: Mon, 8 Jan 1996 16:45:57 -0800 > From: Chris Warth > Subject: printer and parallel port problems > Greetings, Hi! > I have a HP LJ-5MP (HP Postscript printer) hooked up to my parallel > port under FreebSD 2.0.5. I haven't been able to get this thing to > print anything but demo pages and I've never seen any response > (flashing LEDs, etc) that indicates it is even receiving data over the > parallel port. DemoPages == SelfTest?! Standalone printer should do this. Without communications with your computer. The printer seems to be OK. :-) Cable (Centronix Interface, yes?): - Broken one (bad contacts, etc.). Try to find another. - Slightly WRONG one. Latest HP's goods assume FULL-duplex communica- tion with LPT port. Many printers we worked with before were HALF-duplex. The result is old LPT-cables are 18-wires ones but full-duplex protocol needs 25-wires cable (as I understand). I do not remember all these crazy names for IEE... standards. Try to find 25-wires Centronix cable. (BTW, I spent several days for my HP Deskjet 660c (which is full-duplex) to make it work. I went for 25w. LPT port: - maybe it does not understand <-> at the same time? How to check this I do not know :-( But very old LPT-ports definitely can not perform full-duplex communication. Great DOS gurus could help?! MANUAL: - I think there are huge number of options (too clever Printer!). Someting wrong with settings there? > I've rebooted while the printer is connected to the port, used > lptcontrol to switch to polled mode (instead of interrupt). Still > nothing seems to help. In interrupt mode the printer prints very SLOWLY (hour for simple .login in my case) but it *prints* nevertheless ... > Can anyone suggest a simple test to see if the parallel port is even > working? In the meantime I'll try to load windows to see if that can > talk nicely to the printer. Try cat .login > /dev/lpt0 (or where it is) > Also, HP's documentation claims that the LJ-5MP will automatically > work with either PCL or PostScript. Does anyone know if that means > the printer is ready to receive postscript at any time, or does it > just mean that the drivers they supply for windows and macintosh put > the printer into the right mode (through some undocumented PCL > command) before printing? HP LaserJet 4M recognizes plain and PS files (by means of very Clever Mind :-). I.e. under DOS you simply copy myps.ps prn and get the result (printed text or picture but not PS-file hardcopy). I have no ideas about PCL command for mode switching and how your printer will be recognized by Windows. If I remember right a month ago there was discussion on how to make HP LJ+PS work under FreeBSD (printcap, filters, CRLF-problem for HP, etc.) Try to seek in mail-archive at FreeBSD.ORG. > Thanks in advance for any suggestions. Do not mention, maybe this will help a bit. > -csw Regards, Maksim. -- Maksim N. Stolyarov -> mns@lpi.ac.ru <- | Vesso-Link pager Department of Theoretical Physics, | +7(095)974-0111, pager 4597 Lebedev Physical Institute, RAS | Email -> Pager Leninskii 53, 117924, Moscow, Russia | pager@vlpage.sovam.com