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Date: Tue, 17 Jan 1995 19:43:11 +1100
From: Bruce Evans <bde@zeta.org.au>
Message-Id: <199501170843.TAA30076@godzilla.zeta.org.au>
To: adhir@bigdipper.umd.edu, hackers@FreeBSD.org, questions@FreeBSD.org
Subject: Re: GUS question and LPT question
Sender: questions-owner@FreeBSD.org
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>Second question - I have found that with the following device in my kernel:

>device          lpt0    at isa? port "IO_LPT1" tty irq7 vector lptintr

>I can only print in polled mode - if I switch to interrupt driven mode 
>(lptcontrol -i) the printer takes hours to print even one small line.  
>Polled mode, however seems to work OK.  Then I noticed a conversation in 
>which someone stated that we sould not be using irqs for printing at 
>all.  So what should I do - what is the "correct" way to set up my printer?

IRQs should be used for printing iff they work.

I would like to see the specs for printers that take hours to print a
line or page.  This is called by the printer acknowledging output more
than a few microseconds or nanoseconds before it is ready.

Bruce