Terminal and printer on 1 modem

[Jonathan Bayer]

In article <178 at loft386.UUCP>, sdg at loft386.UUCP (Steve Goodrich) writes:
= I have an interesting problem:  I need a way to use both a printer
= and a terminal on one modem.  Multiplexers and stat-muxes are too
= expensive, so those items are out.  I'm using Xenix System V, version
= 2.2.3 on an 80386 clone.  We are using an Arnet Multi-port board with
= 4 serial ports on it, and we have one other serial port available on
= the machine.  One of the people on the machine is going to have to 
= take some time off, and she wants to be able to do her work at home.
= She is the head of our accounting department, and we NEED her to be 
= able to balance the books (especially at the end of the year).  In 
= order to do this, she needs to have both a printer and a terminal at
= home. 
= 
= This, then, is the problem:  we need her to have both a terminal and a 
= printer at home.  There is the obvious answer of her having two modems 
= and two phonelines, and our having to install those.  I think that 
= there must be a better answer, though.  In my mind, a person should be
= able to live with only having to purchase two modems and one phone line.
= The terminal should be able to queue up print requests, and the shell 
= script interface program for the printer should be able to wait until the
= user has logged off, then dial the modem to call her house, dump the file(s),
= and clear the line.  She would also need a serial switch box so that when
= she was done with the terminal (and she had hung up the phone line), she
= could switch the modem's output over to the (serial) printer.  This is 
= my theoretical solution, but I don't know HOW it would be done IF it can
= be done.
= 

There is a better way than that.  Most reasonable terminals these days
have an aux output.  This is designed for a printer.  The terminal can
be told to go to sleep and direct all data to the printer.  What you
want to do is to create a new printer called "remote" or some other
name.  Then have the first characters sent be the sequence telling the
terminal to go to sleep.  Have the last characters sent be the sequence
telling the terminal to wake up.

SCO published a way to make this portable (applicable to whichever
serial line is in use.  I don't have it available, but it should be
available from SCO tech support.

Jonathan Bayer
Intelligent Software Products, Inc.


-- 
life used to be so simple.