uport lp device problems, HP LaserJet II wont work

[Mike O'Donnell]

I apologize for posting this request again.  I received many fine
suggestions from the first time, but none seem to work.  I feel that
most are a step in the right direction, but not the complete solution.
I am going to try to provide more complete information about the
problem this time and hopefully someone can fit the pieces together.

I have am running uport SYS V 386 on a CompuAdd 386 PC.  I am also
using DOSmerge for the 386.  Attached to the parallel printer port
is an HP Laserjet II printer.  I have verified the port and am able
to copy a file directly to /dev/lp and have it show up at the printer.
Then I set up the printer using 'sysviz' and all of the other unix
printer commands.  I am particularly interested in using the printer
in the 'transparent' mode where the driver does no interpretation of
the output.  This is so I can do graphical output and WordPerfect 
output to the HPLJ.

However, when I use the 'lp' command from unix or the 'print' command
from DOS, strange things happen.  The very first time I print a file
after having turned the printer on, I get one line of text, a LF and
then the second line continues.  The output looks this:

+------------ TOP OF PAGE ----------------------------------------+
THIS IS THE FIRST LINE OF TEXT
                              THIS IS THE SECOND LINE OF TEXT
                                                             THIS IS


(nothing but blank page from here to the bottom)
+------------ BOTTOM OF PAGE -------------------------------------+

Then, when the next file is printed, the HPLJ READY light blinks, 
indicating that the data is being received, but usually the FORM FEED
button must be pushed to eject the page.  And when the page is ejected,
there is nothing on it.

I have used the 'lpset' command, and I have used another device
in /dev which has 128 added to the minor device number, apparently
meaning that this device uses the driver in the 'raw' mode.  Nothing
seems to help.

Next I put the printer on a serial port.  If I print a DOS file
which contains both CR and LF characters, it seems to do OK.  So
then I put the printer back on the parallel port and files with
CR and LF don't work.

Another problem related to the parallel port, and this one seems
somewhat unpredictable.  After using 'lpset' to put the port into
the 'transparent' mode, I 'cat' a file to the device, and get a 
message similar to 'cannot create device'.  The 'lpset' program
seems to really screw things up.

Again I apologize for posting this problem again, and for the length
of this article, but I guess that I am really getting desperate.  Any
help will be greatly appreciated.  Again, thanks. 

Mike O'Donnell
Lower Colorado River Authority
3001 Lake Austin Blvd., #201
Austin, Texas 78703
(512) 473-4058