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Has anyone gotten the IIgs LaserWriter driver to work with netatalk? [message #397015] Fri, 24 July 2020 22:09 Go to next message
Christopher G. Mason is currently offline  Christopher G. Mason
Messages: 156
Registered: November 2012
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Senior Member
Specifically its PAP server? I've been having a heck of a time getting
it working. First off, the PAP server in netatalk was not written to
Apple's specifications per "Inside AppleTalk" and the "LaserWriter
Reference" books. It lacked querying of font lists that pre-LaserWriter
8.0 drivers on the Mac and the IIgs driver require. Next is that it
doesn't properly queue its responses to such queries.

I've fixed all that and the PAP server now refuses to recognize that a
Postscript print job was sent. (hey at least folks running System 6 on a
Mac can print now!) Wireshark shows the whole job transfers and I know
the problem isn't with CUPS or Ghostscript on the Linux box. The job
doesn't even get that far!
Re: Has anyone gotten the IIgs LaserWriter driver to work with netatalk? [message #397772 is a reply to message #397015] Wed, 12 August 2020 16:44 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Christopher G. Mason is currently offline  Christopher G. Mason
Messages: 156
Registered: November 2012
Karma: 0
Senior Member
On 7/24/2020 10:09 PM, Christopher G. Mason wrote:
> I've fixed all that and the PAP server now refuses to recognize that a
> Postscript print job was sent. (hey at least folks running System 6 on a
> Mac can print now!) Wireshark shows the whole job transfers and I know
> the problem isn't with CUPS or Ghostscript on the Linux box. The job
> doesn't even get that far!

Fixed the problem. More bugs in the PAP server. It also doesn't help
that the IIgs driver emits PostScript code before sending queries. The
problem was the input file being received by the print server didn't
have the magic number "%!Adobe" appearing as the first line of the file.
This caused cups-filters to treat the document as plain text and not
Postscript.
Re: Has anyone gotten the IIgs LaserWriter driver to work with netatalk? [message #397778 is a reply to message #397772] Wed, 12 August 2020 18:00 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Steven Hirsch is currently offline  Steven Hirsch
Messages: 798
Registered: October 2012
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Senior Member
On 8/12/20 4:44 PM, Christopher G. Mason wrote:
> On 7/24/2020 10:09 PM, Christopher G. Mason wrote:
>> I've fixed all that and the PAP server now refuses to recognize that a
>> Postscript print job was sent. (hey at least folks running System 6 on a Mac
>> can print now!) Wireshark shows the whole job transfers and I know the
>> problem isn't with CUPS or Ghostscript on the Linux box. The job doesn't
>> even get that far!
>
> Fixed the problem. More bugs in the PAP server. It also doesn't help that the
> IIgs driver emits PostScript code before sending queries. The problem was the
> input file being received by the print server didn't have the magic number
> "%!Adobe" appearing as the first line of the file. This caused cups-filters to
> treat the document as plain text and not Postscript.

Good detective work. Any chance of getting the patches for this?
Re: Has anyone gotten the IIgs LaserWriter driver to work with netatalk? [message #397781 is a reply to message #397772] Wed, 12 August 2020 21:19 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Hugh Hood is currently offline  Hugh Hood
Messages: 678
Registered: November 2012
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Senior Member
On 8/12/2020 3:44 PM, Christopher G. Mason wrote:

>
> The problem was the input file being received by the print server
> didn't have the magic number "%!Adobe" appearing as the first line
> of the file. This caused cups-filters to treat the document as plain
> text and not Postscript.
>

Chris,

I found the same issue when I 'converted/patched' the stock LaserWriter
driver to become the Direct Connect {non-AppleTalk} PostScript driver.

For some reason, the LaserWriter driver's creators decided to send the
jobname / document name PostScript code immediately _preceding_ the
magic '%!PS-Adobe-2.0' identifier.

Rather than re-order those (non-trivial when you're patching the
driver), I just patched out the sending of the document name line
altogether as its seems rather unimportant when printing directly.





Hugh Hood
Re: Has anyone gotten the IIgs LaserWriter driver to work with netatalk? [message #397787 is a reply to message #397781] Wed, 12 August 2020 23:14 Go to previous message
Christopher G. Mason is currently offline  Christopher G. Mason
Messages: 156
Registered: November 2012
Karma: 0
Senior Member
On 8/12/2020 9:19 PM, Hugh Hood wrote:
> On 8/12/2020 3:44 PM, Christopher G. Mason wrote:
>
>>
>> The problem was the input file being received by the print server
>> didn't have the magic number "%!Adobe" appearing as the first line
>> of the file. This caused cups-filters to treat the document as plain
>> text and not Postscript.
>>
>
> Chris,
>
> I found the same issue when I 'converted/patched' the stock LaserWriter
> driver to become the Direct Connect {non-AppleTalk} PostScript driver.
>
> For some reason, the LaserWriter driver's creators decided to send the
> jobname / document name PostScript code immediately _preceding_ the
> magic '%!PS-Adobe-2.0' identifier.
>

Yup, that's the problem I had. This solution works no matter what driver
you are using. Apple also pulled a no-no by batch querying the printer
with a self-ID and FontListQuery in one. The Mac drivers do it in
separate query sessions. The netatalk PAP server would send the response
all in one PAP session, the IIgs driver wants it all in separate
sessions. The cause of the lockup was the driver was issuing a second
PAP Read and the server had nothing to send because it sent everything
during the first PAP Read for the self-ID!
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