XENIX and inkjet printers...
Frank and Dana Godek
I recently setup an old '486 running SCO XENIX System V Rel 2.3.4 at a new
site and was unable to get the system to work with a Lexmark Colorjet 1020,
an HP Deskjet 400, or a Canon BJC-240.
The system had been running just fine for several years with an HP Laserjet
III connected to it. I moved it to a new location after replacing it with
a new OpenServer 5 system but left all the old peripherals with the new
system. Thinking that I could just use a cheap inkjet printer, I got the
Lexmark for it. It didn't work. Data would seem to go to the printer but
nothing would actually print (sometimes I got the first character). I was
able to print to it from DOS (booted from the floppy drive) thus
eliminating the parallel port and cabling as the problem (hopefully). I
called Lexmark and was told that this printer was only supported under DOS
and Windows and that I could not speak to an engineer to get a reason for
this. After the Lexmark, I tried an HP Deskjet 400 and a Canon BJC-240
with the same results. Does anybody know what I need to do to get these
printers to work with SCO XENIX? At this point, I'm probably just going to
go out and get an HP Laserjet but I'd like to know why the inkjets all
failed. Is it an electronic problem (like not seeing an expected signal on
a pin) or is it just a software problem (like expecting some kind of start
sequence before printing).
Thanks for your help.
Frank
Bill Marcum
In message <01bc7ba2$1620d4a0$d450...@snail.workstationgroup.com>,
sending something that only the Laserjet can understand. Try copying
a text file to the raw /dev/lp0 (or whatever it's called) device.
--
Bill Marcum bmarcum at iglou dot com
"I'm looking at PAGES AND PAGES of stuff even the Franklin Mint couldn't
give away for free." -- K. Mennie
Bill Vermillion
In article <01bc7ba2$1620d4a0$d450...@snail.workstationgroup.com>,
Frank and Dana Godek <go...@pixi.com> wrote:
>I recently setup an old '486 running SCO XENIX System V Rel 2.3.4 at a new
>site and was unable to get the system to work with a Lexmark Colorjet 1020,
>an HP Deskjet 400, or a Canon BJC-240.
>
>The system had been running just fine for several years with an HP Laserjet
>III connected to it. I moved it to a new location after replacing it with
>a new OpenServer 5 system but left all the old peripherals with the new
>system. Thinking that I could just use a cheap inkjet printer, I got the
>Lexmark for it. It didn't work. Data would seem to go to the printer but
>nothing would actually print (sometimes I got the first character). I was
>able to print to it from DOS (booted from the floppy drive) thus
>eliminating the parallel port and cabling as the problem (hopefully). I
>called Lexmark and was told that this printer was only supported under DOS
>and Windows and that I could not speak to an engineer to get a reason for
>this. After the Lexmark, I tried an HP Deskjet 400 and a Canon BJC-240
>with the same results.
The newer 400s' - and I don't know about the Canon - will only
work under DOS/Win. You ask why? Because they have no
resident fonts and rely on the DOS/Win font you have defined.
By doing that they were able to make them cheaper.
>Does anybody know what I need to do to get these
>printers to work with SCO XENIX?
Nope.
>At this point, I'm probably just going to
>go out and get an HP Laserjet but I'd like to know why the inkjets all
>failed. Is it an electronic problem (like not seeing an expected signal on
>a pin) or is it just a software problem (like expecting some kind of start
>sequence before printing).
Neither. As I mentioned above - they don't have any fonts in
them.
You just didn't get the right DeskJets - you need ones with
built in fonts. I'm running an HP 855c and it works under all
variants of OSes I have tried because it has built in fonts.
I do my invoices from filePro with colored headings from a 7
year old Unix install with no problems.
--
Bill Vermillion - bill.ve...@oau.org | bi...@bilver.com
Joel Robinson
Frank and Dana Godek <go...@pixi.com> wrote in article
<01bc7ba2$1620d4a0$d450...@snail.workstationgroup.com>...
> I recently setup an old '486 running SCO XENIX System V Rel 2.3.4 at a
new
> site and was unable to get the system to work with a Lexmark Colorjet
1020,
> an HP Deskjet 400, or a Canon BJC-240.
>
Did you replace the printer interface script (/usr/spool/lp/interfaces/???)
- if you
are still using the old laserjet, you may have problems, especially with
non-hp.
Larry Owens
If you really need to use ink-jet printers be sure to look at the
included fonts to see if they are adequate. The HP-680 has several
built-in fonts but NOT all of the LaserJet III fonts. It is worth
spending a bit extra on one of the 850 series as it has closer
functionality to the LJ III.
Regards, Larry