*BSD News Article 65843


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From: Sean Kelly <kelly@fsl.noaa.gov>
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: Okidata printer problem identified  :(
Date: Fri, 12 Apr 1996 08:26:44 -0600
Organization: NOAA Forecast Systems Laboratory
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Message-ID: <316E6824.6223@fsl.noaa.gov>
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Darryl Watson wrote:
> the printer requires bi-directional communications, and FreeBSD doesn't
> yet support that option.

Why does the printer *require* bidirectional communication over the
parallel?  It seems quite suspect, to me.  Not that I don't believe you,
but Okidata would be limiting its market share---there's a lot of PCs
out there that can't support bidir parallel port comms because of
hardware and not the OS that's driving 'em.

This is a 610e/PS printer?  That's PostScript?  Although bidir comms are
nice for PostScript, they're not absolutely necessary.  I have a
sneaking suspicion you *can* print with FreeBSD to this printer.  As a
quick test, plug it in and type the following (as root):

cat > /dev/lpt0
%!PS
100 100 moveto 300 300 lineto stroke showpage
CTRL+D

And let me know what happens, if anything.

-- 
Sean Kelly                          
NOAA Forecast Systems Laboratory    kelly@fsl.noaa.gov
Boulder Colorado USA                http://www-sdd.fsl.noaa.gov/~kelly/