Re: appletalk printing w/ proterm 3.1

[dempson@actrix.gen.nz (David Empson)]

rb <rbooker@darkwing.uoregon.edu> wrote:

> i have an imagewriter ii and a laserwriter networked to the iigs 
> (with a file sharing mac plus, which i assume isn't relevant).

Correct.  It is only the IIgs and printers which are significant.

> it is the imagewriter that is not responding.

Just eliminating the obvious first...

I assume you are using CHOOSER.II or the appropriate IIgs control panel
to select the printer in each case?

Are you able to print to the ImageWriter from a GS/OS program?

> it is the laserwriter that is overprinting on one line.

This implies that nothing is sending line feeds, or they are being
stripped out somewhere.  Check the printer port settings in the Control
Panel - if they are set to their default values, then the firmware is
not deleting line feeds, and is adding one after each CR.  This is how
my IIgs is configured, and it works fine with my networked ImageWriter
II.

(The only settings that are used with an AppleTalk connecion are "Line
Length", "Delete first LF after CR", "Add LF after CR" and "Echo".  This
is obvious on a ROM 3 IIgs, because it doesn't bother displaying the
other items if the serial port is being used for AppleTalk.)

> as for the imagewriter (which i prefer to the laserwriter for on-line data
> printing), one thing i didn't mention is that it is equipped with a
> sheet-feeder.  is that relevant?

It might be.  I have had trouble with AppleWorks printing to my
networked ImageWriter II with a sheetfeeder installed.  I have found
that (most of the time) the first sheet is not fed in automatically.  I
have to put the printer offline, press the form feed button to load the
first sheet of paper, then put the printer online again.  Everything
prints fine after this point, until the end of the job.  I then have to
repeat the process for the next job.

This never happens when I print from GS/OS or from the Mac.

I suspect it is a bug in the RPM code in the IIgs (which is not used by
the GS/OS AppleTalk printer driver), which makes the computer think the
printer is not ready because there is currently no paper in it.

There is no problem using a directly connected ImageWriter with a sheet
feeder.

-- 
David Empson
dempson@actrix.gen.nz
Snail Mail: P.O. Box 27-103, Wellington, New Zealand