I received several responses to my request for printcap entries for
HP Laserjet printers. I also called the DEC Hotline and got another
answer.
Thanks to all that replied so quickly to my question!!!
You were all of great help!
In our case we had three things wrong: the cable, the printer
type, and the device name (/dev/tty00).
The user had mistakenly gotten a modem cable, and not a
null-modem cable. I asked him if he'd tried different cables and of
course he said he had, but the other cable he tried was a duplicate of
the first cable! Ultimately, I brought my own cable over and tried it
and immediately got connectivity.
That left the problem of finding the right printcap entry.
First, the call to DEC helped me verify that the correct device name if
you use the printer port on the back of the DS 3000/300 (it's a male
DB25 connector with a printer icon pictured above the port) is:
/dev/tty00. I had guessed tty01, since I was used to DS 3100's where
there are two serial ports, the first is usually used for a monitor and
the second for a printer or modem. Second, I had to find
the right filter to use, since we still got garbage. I was relieved to
find that we didn't have to fuss with the fs, fc, xs, and xc parameters!
The next problem we had was that the user told me the printer was an
HP Laserjet 4M. Well, ..., he lied! Actually, there are now so MANY
different HP Laserjet printers available with such similiar-sounding
names that it's easy to see how a user would be confused. There is a
big difference between a Laserjet 4M and a Laserjet IV with postscript
support!!! Once we found out that the printer was not a 4M, we were
able to find a printcap entry that worked from among the solutions that
some of you so graciously provided! So, beware of HP's alphabet soup!!!
All of the solutions that I received differed only in the filter
used, with one exception: the ln03r filter solution, which is what
ultimately worked for me, has 2 extra parameters defined, most notably
the ps=PS parameter to tell it to do postscript!! There was one site where
they couldn't get the printer to print both postscript and plain text
files using the same filter. They defined two different printcap
entries with different printer names (for the same printer) and defined
two different print commands (print and psprint) to print the particular
type file. I found that I did NOT have to do this. The one filter I
used worked for both types. (An alternative would be to write a script
that checks the file to see if it's postscipt and if it's not to wrap it
in postscript before sending it to lpr. Such poscript wrappers are
quite easy to do, since several years ago I ported one in C from an AT&T
3B15 running System V to a VAX and all I had to do was slightly change
one line in the code!!!)
The conclusion of this excersise is that there isn't one
printcap entry for everyone, since there are so many different versions
of HP printers! What I've done is included the summary of all the
replies, since you might have a different printer.
Well, here's the list of solutions:
Note: there is a good selection of filters provided, especially in OSF
version 3.2. They are the files: /usr/lbin/*of
For an HP Laserjet IV M, there is a DEC-supplied filter:
hplaser4psof which is what DEC recommended (before I found out that it
wasn't a 4M printer). The printer type for lprsetup is hplaser4m.
The filter that worked for me was: ln03rof.
The other filters suggested were: ps_level2of, lj250of,
hplaserpsof, and hplaserof.
Note that we also have an HP Laserjet III and the hplaserof
filter works nicely.
Also, note that we are using XON/XOFF for flow control, which is
what the printer manual (which we finally found :-) said to use.
Here are the printcaps:
************************************************************************
First, what works for me: (printer type ln03r):
lp|lj4|lp0|medina|hp lj4 with postscript in Medina's office:\
:br#19200:\
:ct=dev:\
:fc#0177777:\
:fs#03:\
:if=/usr/lbin/ln03rof:\
:lf=/usr/adm/lperr:\
:lp=/dev/tty00:\
:mx#0:\
:of=/usr/lbin/ln03rof:\
:pl#66:\
:pw#80:\
:rw:\
:sd=/usr/spool/lpd:\
:sh:\
:rs:\
:xc#0177777:\
:xf=/usr/lbin/xf:\
:xs#044000:\
:ps=PS:
************************************************************************
Someone else got it to work for their printer without the ps parameter,
which is what you get if you use lprsetup and simply specify an ln03r as
printer type:
lj1|lp0:\
:af=/usr/adm/lpacct:\
:br#9600:\
:ct=dev:\
:fc#0177777:\
:fs#03:\
:if=/usr/lbin/ln03rof:\
:lf=/usr/adm/lperr:\
:lp=/dev/tty00:\
:mc#20:\
:mx#0:\
:of=/usr/lbin/ln03rof:\
:pl#66:\
:pw#80:\
:rw:\
:sh:\
:sd=/usr/spool/lpd:\
:xc#0177777:\
:xf=/usr/lbin/xf:\
:xs#044000:
********************************************************************
Someone else, with an HP Laserjet 4M used the following solution:
1) for plain ASCCI files I added of=/usr/lbin/lpf
2) for postscript files I added of=/usr/lbin/ps_level2of
(the filters lpf and ps_level2of were bundled with My machine. I run OSF
v3.0)
which means that I defined 2 aliases (print and psprint) according to
the
file I want to print.
Here is my printcap file:
# impression directe sur la HP4 (LAT) (texte simple)
hplat|lathp:\
:af=/usr/adm/lpacct:\
:ct=LAT:\
:lf=/usr/adm/lperr:\
:lp=/dev/tty09:\
:mx#0:\
:of=/usr/lbin/lpf:\
:sd=/usr/spool/lpd:
#
# hplat pour Postscript
hpps:\
:af=/usr/adm/lpacct:\
:ct=LAT:\
:lf=/usr/adm/lperr:\
:lp=/dev/tty09:\
:mx#0:\
:of=/usr/lbin/ps_level2of:\
:sd=/usr/spool/lpd:
My printer is under LAT just because of the interface card we added to
put
it on the LAN, but this should not change anything for the filters.
***************************************************************
Bob haskins_at_mipps.myapc.com mentioned something about being willing to
"...send you copies of the Brian Utterbeck filters that I have run
successfully under OSF/1. Please let me know and I will forward a copy
to you."
***************************************************************
Lastly, someone else uses the following:
this is our printcap entry with a similar configuration :
(printer type to lprsetup is lj250)
lp1|1|hp_terre_80|hpt80|HP_TERRE_80|HPT80|hpt|hpbe|HPBE:\
:af=/usr/adm/lp1acct:\
:br#19200:\
:ct=dev:\
:fc#0177777:\
:fs#03:\
:if=/usr/lbin/lj250of:\
:lf=/usr/adm/lp1err:\
:lp=/dev/tty00:\
:mc#20:\
:mx#0:\
:pl#66:\
:pw#80:\
:rw:\
:sd=/usr/spool/lpd1:\
:sh:\
:xc#0177777:\
:xf=/usr/lbin/xf:\
:xs#044000:
******************************************************************
I hope that from the above suggestions, you can find at least one that
will work!!! Good luck!
********************************************************************
**************************************************************************
Jerry Winegarden User Services Specialist, Sr
Computer ASSIST Center Duke University
Room 337 North Building Research Drive Durham, NC 27708
-------
phone: (919)-660-6911 | |
pager: (919)-970-4270 | O O |
fax: (919)-684-8651 | ^ |
| ===== |
e-mail: jbw_at_ac.duke.edu L_______|
On the Internet,
To err is human, No one may know that
To REALLY screw up requires a computer! you're a dog,
(But that's why I have a job :-) But they'll ALL know
you're a BLOCKHEAD!
******* Another witty saying goes here (insert your own) *************
Received on Wed Apr 05 1995 - 12:06:54 NZST