Sorry, should have said what printer. It is a Star SP300 dot matrix parallel interface. I made a silly mistake - the 500 has linux drivers, but the 300 does not. Partly I don't want to be out £40, but also at this point there is an intellectual challenge involved!
I think it might be possible to print directly to it in 'raw' mode - there are hints about this on the net.
ls > dev/lp0
and there is something about setting up the printer as make = raw, with model as raw queue, after which you are supposed to be able to print to it with
lpr -P queuefile
If I can figure out how to get some characters, any characters, sent over to it to print, then I can certainly find a way to format the string so they come out right.
I do have windows drivers, and can experiment with them if I can figure out what experiment to do....
Peter
Peter Alcibiades wrote:
Sorry, should have said what printer. It is a Star SP300 dot matrix parallel interface. I made a silly mistake - the 500 has linux drivers, but the 300 does not. Partly I don't want to be out £40, but also at this point there is an intellectual challenge involved!
I think it might be possible to print directly to it in 'raw' mode - there are hints about this on the net.
ls > dev/lp0
and there is something about setting up the printer as make = raw, with model as raw queue, after which you are supposed to be able to print to it with
lpr -P queuefile
If I can figure out how to get some characters, any characters, sent over to it to print, then I can certainly find a way to format the string so they come out right.
I do have windows drivers, and can experiment with them if I can figure out what experiment to do....
My memory is a bit rusty on these things, but in Windows, didn't you used to be able to copy a file to a printer with the /b switch so that it would be copied in binary mode? Isn't that what your raw mode is?
So if you're experimenting, you might try that for a kick-off.
Another thought, again from the memory banks, can you set the printer to emulate something else, perhaps by sending it a sequence of instructions? Would you then be able to drive the emulated printer from linux?
Sorry, should have said what printer. It is a Star SP300 dot matrix parallel interface. I made a silly mistake - the 500 has linux drivers, but the 300 does not. Partly I don't want to be out £40, but also at this point there is an intellectual challenge involved!
I think it might be possible to print directly to it in 'raw' mode - there are hints about this on the net. ls > dev/lp0
and there is something about setting up the printer as make = raw, with model as raw queue, after which you are supposed to be able to print to it with lpr -P queuefile
If I can figure out how to get some characters, any characters, sent over to it to print, then I can certainly find a way to format the string so they come out right.
Again rusty with Dot Matrix but most can be put in a mode where they will emulate either ESC/P2 (Epson) or IBM control characters and then you can just set up CUPS to output that. Usually there is a way of doing this from the control panel and printing out menus or on older models via DIP switches hidden somewhere.
raw mode in cups just means "spool the input as is and apply no formatting or control signals" which should work fine for plain text but unless you can insert the correct control characters in the print job, presents a problem if you need access to different typefaces, control of bold characters etc.
On Wed, Nov 25, 2009 at 12:54:47AM +0000, Wayne Stallwood wrote:
Again rusty with Dot Matrix but most can be put in a mode where they will emulate either ESC/P2 (Epson) or IBM control characters and then you can just set up CUPS to output that. Usually there is a way of doing this from the control panel and printing out menus or on older models via DIP switches hidden somewhere.
The 300 uses a menu it prints out on the paper. I retired ours last year with great pleasure no more excrutiating noise when the accounts got printed and they'd run for 2 days continuously.
Adam
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Wayne Stallwood