Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!pyrdc!pyrnj!rutgers!rochester!udel!mmdf
From: 75008378%VAX2.NIHED.IE@cunyvm.cuny.edu
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Printer problems...
Message-ID: <4168@louie.udel.EDU>
Date: 22 Sep 88 13:33:11 GMT
Sender: mmdf@udel.EDU
Lines: 34

Dermot Tynan  writes:

> I got Barry's printer driver (running 1.2) to run.  I am late in sending out
> invoices, and invoices == money, so there was a major effort underway early
> this morning, to get everything up and running.  It worked just fine, except
> for a couple of things; tabs were all over the place.  I haven't had a chance
> to look at the driver yet, so it might even be my printer.  I fixed the
> problem by quickly editing the invoices and replacing all tabs with spaces.
> In the future I will probably write a QnD (quick and dirty) program to convert
> them, if one doesn't exist.  When I reprinted the files, I could see no traces
> of missing characters, or anything, so it is looking good! One other problem I
> did find, however, is that if I turn off the printer, the system hangs until I
> turn it back on.  Again, I'll take a closer look tonight.

Well it's nice to know someone got it working.  There is *no* tab handling
in the driver - if you want tab expansion (and newline expansion for that
matter) shove your stuff thru lpr.  If you're already doing that, there
really is something fishy going on...

I'm not sure what you mean by "the system hangs" - like *everything*
freezes?  Or just the driver?  Does the driver print up any error messages?
(it should if you try to print while the printer is off...).  The error
handling is poor all right (e.g. it might be nicer if you could go
off line, and back on, without necessarily aborting an I/O request in
the driver).

I should have V1.3 within the next couple of weeks (thanks Richard,
and Rick too), so I'll have a look at the driver again then maybe.

PS: Dermot: No I havn't got mail from you, no I can't seem to get
mail thru to you.  I'll keep trying some more variations...

Barry McMullin, NIHED, Dublin Ireland.