UNIX-PX Printer Setup

[Kevin O'Gorman]

In article <932 at mtfmi.att.com> tjc at mtfmi.att.com (T.CZARNECKI) writes:
>
>	The printer is a OKIDATA Microline 182,  the printer setup
>on the UNIX-PC only has an option for a OKIDATA92.  If I select
>that option, I can't do screen prints... I've tried other selections

Yep, AT&T did it to you again.  They did it to me, too.  Screen printing
works only with AT&T printers, maybe on full compatibles.  This is not too
surprising because it is built into the kernel and they didn't want to
clutter that with lots of odd options for different bit-addressing styles
that different printers have.

I solved this long ago, though I'm not sure I still have the code around.

You must become familiar with the controls on the line-printer spooler,
and fake it into thinking that the first(!!!) printer you defined on
the system is an AT&T printer such as the ATT471.  Then it will do
screen prints to that device.  In no other case will it do so.

The problem is that these prints will look like garbage on your
Okidata.  So you have to change the interface for that printer.  Fortunately,
this is a shell script somewhere in /usr/spool/lp, not a driver.
You can find it by doing "find /usr/spool/lp -newer ..." after you have
defined the printer.

What I did was to take raw output for that printer, filter it with a
program, and send it to my "real" printer, which I had defined after
the ATT471.  The filter had to accomodate the fact that the ATT471
prints 8 dots on each line in graphics mode, and the Oki only prints 7.
So although the formats were pretty easy to figure out, I had to
emulate the 471 and send the equivalent output to the Oki.

It worked fine, but I have a real 471 these days, and the Oki is old
and not too solid, so I do real screen prints when I need them.