From: marcr@studsys.mscs.mu.edu (Marc Rassbach)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.pc-clone.32bit
Subject: The summary to my LP printer problems of 2-3 weeks ago
Date: 11 Jan 1993 03:48:34 GMT
Organization: Marquette University - Department MSCS
Distribution: world
Reply-To: marcr@studsys.mscs.mu.edu (Marc Rassbach)
NNTP-Posting-Host: studsys.mscs.mu.edu
Originator: marcr@studsys.mscs.mu.edu


Hello.  Here is the promised summary to my LP problem under 
Esix 4.0.3.

1) The parallel port driver IS broken.  Little bits of printer
control characters show up on the page.  These 'go away' when I
(in a fit of desperation) moved the printers from parallel to serial

2) Contrary to some of my local associates, the stty does do 
post-processing, so one needs to turn this off.  Adding -opost and
raw do that.  Thanks to the individuals (2) who emailed me with this
and did not make it into my summary.  Changing the -opost and
raw got the fonts working, but did not totally clear things up.
#1 above made things wonderful.

Thanks to all that mailed/posted.  Here's a list of the first people
to give me a clue, and what they said......

From: Fred Appelman <fred@cv.ruu.nl>

In comp.unix.questions you write:
>Esix SysV rev 4.0.3 with bugfix for lp1 lp2 slowness

Perhaps Esix uses the same printer drivers as my system does (Dell unix).
I once had problems with the printer driver to get TeX working. The dvi
conversion program just produced garbage. I found out that the problem was
in the interface script. (/usr/lib/lp/model/hplaser)
The problem was at line 486. The lines looked like this 

#####
# Set defaults for unset variables.
#####

: ${TERM:=unknown}
if [ ${TERM} = hplaser ]; then
        jetfile=1
else
        TERM=hplaser
        export TERM
        jetfile=
fi
tput lines 1>/dev/null 2>&1 || TPUT=:

: ${CHARSET:=cs0}

The problem was the line that looks like "jetfile=". This line should be 
changed "jetfile=1". This will make the lp filter program 8 bit instead
of 7 bit. I'll bet that softfonts are 8 bit too!!! Perhaps this will help
you, good luck.

 Fred

[Now this DOES have an effect under Esix Sys V 4.0.3  On most output
a 0G would appear.  I THINK Esix's LP interface is trying to set up
some contol stuff...as in Esck0G for making carriage return = CR  
This did not solve my problem however]

Subject: Re: Problem with lp.  Got me stumped.  (email, I'll sum)

In article <1hu0hfINNicm@spool.mu.edu> marcr@studsys.mscs.mu.edu (Marc Rassbach) writes:
>What happens when it doesn't work is the softfonts get
>'munged' aka the 1 refuses to print in one of the fonts, the y
>and other characters in another, ad nausium.

Yep, I've seen this one.  The only difference was that the soft fonts
were part of the output of a DVI->LaserJet converter.

The problem is that Esix's parallel port driver is terminally broken.
Esix acknowledges that even in 4.0.4, their driver drops characters
all over the place with lots of different laser printers (including
printers made by Abaton, an Everex subsidiary.  They did not have any
plans to fix it the last time I talked to them, which was a couple
months ago.  As far as I could see their official line was to try one
of the PD polling parallel port drivers if I *had* to use the parallel
port; otherwise, use a serial port to talk to the printer.

I was not impressed with Esix's handling of the situation; in fact, it
was this problem that convinced me once and for all that Esix is not
an appropriate OS for use in a production environment.  It's one thing
to have a bug in your driver.  It's another thing entirely to (a) have
the bug in two subsequent releases of the OS; (b) have no fix for
something as basic as correct parallel port output; and (c) not even
have PLANS to release a fix at some point.  And people still wonder
why SCO does so well...

-- 
Marc Unangst, N8VRH         | "Of course, in order to understand this you
mju@mudos.ann-arbor.mi.us   |  have to remember that the nucleus of the atom
                            |  is squishy."
                            |    -W. Scheider, from a Physics lecture

[Marc's critisism of Esix is justified too.  I've e-mailed them 
and have not received a response.  And there answer has been 
Use the serial port.  Well, damit, I DID pay money expecting the
OS to work......and it ain't.]

From: Dan Busarow <dan@cedb.dpcsys.org>
Marc,

Try adding 'raw' to the stty line in your printer interface file.

stty raw 38400 .....

[This is ALMOST IT!  The real answer was also adding -opost]

From: paul@pphbau.atr.bso.nl (PPH Bauwens)
I strongly suggest you get a new parallel/serial I/O board where the
LP interrupt really works!. They only cost about 25$

[The rest is deleted.  I've tried 4 different parallel ports.  The 
first was the one built onto the motherboard, one was an 'offical
IBM' parallel/serial card, and the others were 'generic'  No go.  
Draw your own conclusion.......]

-- 
Marc Rassbach    marcr@studsys.mscs.mu.edu    If you take my advice, that
MS-DOS - it's not   marc@milestn.mil.wi.us    is your problem, not mine!
my problem!     If it was said on UseNet, it must be true.
   Unix - It's a nice place to live, but you don't want to visit there.
Xref: sparky comp.unix.pc-clone.32bit:1028 comp.unix.sysv386:17732 biz.sco.general:5075