#LazerXpress Help
24 messages in this thread
Ron:
I finally got the dealer's LazerXpress Printer to work. The problem was
a bent pin on a connector. I'm running it with a Kronos controller, which
is attached to a 20-meg MiniScribe via an Omti interface. All is not well
though. Frequently the disk drive light stays lit and I get the dreaded
"DH0: has a read/write error" requester. After a few clicks on the retry
and and cancel buttons, things seem to return to normal, although a visit
to info reveals errors on the drive. A reboot makes the errors disappear
magically. If the problem is not serious, it is at least annoying and at
worst a cause for anxiety.
I am also having problems dealing with the fonts. I don't seem to be
able to set up WordPerfect to access the bold and Italic versions of the
fonts, let alone the different sizes. I tried fooling around with PrintDef
to see if that would help, but no success so far.
Although the Printer Test provided with the LazerExpress software prints
out a full set of ASCII characters, including foreign characters,
WordPerfect doesn't seem to read them. I have been unable to get the thing
to print out the Spanish characters in my documents, although they appear
on the list printed out by the LazerXpress test. I fooled around with the
PrintDef program, but have had no success.
Do you, or anyone who has one of these extinct birds, have any
suggestions. It does fine with PageStream, but I haven't had any luck with
Pixelscript either.
Any words of advice (or comfort) would be appreciated.
Bill Perez
San Juan, PR
My only comment is that my Oki drive, running on that old Omti interface
attached to my Kronos, stopped the non-stop errors when I stopped running
the drive on its side. I don't know WP or its font handling.
Ron
Ron,
Many drives, while capable of being run on their side…have to be
low-level formatted in that position for them to work reliably.
I've got an OKI (OD-540) that I'm running upside down. It was
getting a tiny bit flakey (would hang every 3rd or 4th boot requiring a
reset). I ran a low level format on it and it's been 100% fine since then.
Don
Ron:
The problems seemed to pop up after I hooked up the LazerXpress printer.
For some reason I thought you were using the LazerXpress also. I suspect
the problem may be in the software. But, as you already know from earlier
communications, I'm no genius on this stuff.
Bill Perez
San Juan, PR
At the time the xpress was being sold, I couldn't afford one; now I have a
IIP.
Ron
Ron:
Maybe it was Lloyd Dull who said he has one. Nonetheless, a pal in
Canada has been most helpful, including uploading for me a later version of
the Software than what I got with mine. Thanks a lot for your help, though.
Bill Perez
San Juan, PR
I'm glad to hear you've made progress, and am crossing my fingers that we
all have Kronos working properly once we get 2.0.
Ron
Ron:
As might be expected the problem was a dumb one. After the dealer
stripped down the unit, I noticed one of the pins on a connector was bent.
We straightened out and off we went.
Bill Perez
San Juan, PR
Bill;
WordPerfect has its own font definition files and does not use any of the
printers soft fonts. The LazerXpress does not have anything but softfonts
as the "rip" operation is performed in the amiga. I just tried printing
out a document with both italic and italic/bold (ain't multitasking great?)
but the italic bold did not print in bold.
Memory being what it is……… I am trying to remember how WP accesses
that stuff. Do you have a copy of the manuals for the C-Ltd stuff? If you
do, then I recommend that you create a few paragraphs of text (ascii) and
use a text editor to insert the LazerXpress font change commands directly
into the text to be sure that the desired font(s) actually have the
attributes that you are trying to use. If that works, then you should be
able to go back to PrintDef and set up the lazerxpress driver.
I am sorry that I can't be of more help right now but it has been years
since I first set up the LazerXpress and don't remember all of the things
that I had to do. You do have the WP-LazerXpress driver, yes?
As you "plow" though this, ask away and maybe it will start comming back to
me….. not to mention that I can likely answer specific configuration
questions (just by looking).
,bill
Bill:
The fonts are there all right. I can print them out using the printer
test that comes with the LazerXpress utilities disk. It's just that I can't
seem to access them correctly. The 10-point courier fonts are full ASCII,
including foreign characters and symbols, and they print out in the test.
But when I try to use the foreign characters in WordPerfect, the characters
print without the accents.
Someone left me a message informing me that the last revision of SCSIDos
issued by CLimited had a file called font.prt which solved the WordPerfect
problem. He kindly offered to upload it for me, so I hope this will take
care of that.
Of more immediate concern is the disk error messages I have been getting
since I set up the LazerXpress. The hd light stays on and the drive sounds
like it is trying to access, then the error requester. I hit cancel once
the light goes out and the error message disappears. Info shows two errors
more errors on the HD every time the system hangs. A re-boot makes the
error notes disappear when I run info. Very strange.
I'll wait for the upload of font.prt and see if that solves the
WordPerfect problem. If I can fix this and figure out what's causing the
error messages, I can get a pretty good deal on the printer. I seem to own
the only Kronos with the right personality module in the Caribbean and the
dealer will almost give it to me.
Bill Perez
San Juan, PR
Bill;
The error listings from "info" are internal data and are not saved. Thus,
what ever error count that info shows is always the total since the last
boot.
There are some "down-sides" to the LazerXpress. The high priority of the
interrupts used to drive the laser engine prevent most multitasking from
taking place during an actual page output. Dnet and Parnet do not work if
the Kronos LazerXpress software is loaded. Interestingly enough though,
the Ethernet cards do work fine with LazerXpress running (at least so far).
Yes, you definately need the font.prt file that was supplied by C-Ltd for
WordPerfect to be of any use with the LazerXpress (or spend a considerable
portion of the rest of your life trying to create your own version). Your
WP should work with the Amiga Printer Driver and output to the LazerXpress
but with the attendant loss of features.
,bill
Bill:
Am I to understand the occasional hang up of the HD and subsequent
"read/write error" requester is nothing to worry about?
I downloaded the revisions of the software and have been tinkering with
it. So far I am able to access bold. italics, etc., but am still unable to
access the the special characters, ie, acute a, e, i, o, u, and the spanish
n.
However, the output with PageStream 1.8 is excellent.
Bill Perez
San Juan, PR
Bill;
I don't know what I said but it was either very wrong or you miss
interpreted it badly <grin>. I don't consider an occasional hang of the HD
and supsequent "read/write error" requester to be minor and of no concern.
However, the if these are occuring when using the LazerXpress (and only
when using the LazerXpress) then I would not be in too much of a panic. I
used to get those messages fairly often (until I installed the GVP drive
controller). Since running the GVP, the only time I have received that
requester is when something serious really has been wrong.
I think that the task priorities in the Kronos/LazerXpress software suite
are not completely correct and occassionally result in a "racing"
condition. If clicking on retry do not succeed in accomplishing the task
that you are attempting then I would be very worried. Possibly a faster
disk drive would help (though the one that I was (and still am) using on
the Kronos is quite fast. Since disk drives are pretty expensive
(especially real fast ones), and controllers are pretty cheap, I would
suggest that you to see if you could try out a GVP controller. If so, put
all of the LazerXpress stuff (that is DEVS, FONTS, LIBS, and commands
associated with Kronos and LazerXpress on "the other drive/controller).
Boot from the "other drive/controller" and see if that eliminates the
problem.
You probably do want to upgrade to PageStream 2.1 sir! It is slower on
screen updates (which is a bit annoying) but is otherwise a vastly improved
product. The PGS/LazerXpress combination makes a terrific productivity
tool. BTW, the WP import module in PGS 2.1 is much better than for the 1.8
version. Indeed, PGS's ability to work with both WP and the LazerXpress is
the major reason that I seldom print from WP anymore.
PGS does supply all of the "foreign" characters but you have to be careful
since not all of the font sets have all of the characters!
,bill
Bill:
The problem comes up any time. This started when I installed the
LazerXpress software. It seems to disappear though, whenever I remove the
printer connecter from the card (not sure though). The system will suddenly
hang, after a few seconds the requester comes up, and then the card seems
to go through three resets. If I hit cancel, the requester disappears and
things go back to normal, although the drive fails to do whatever task it
was performing at the time of the interruption. For instance, if I am in
Whap, the system will throw me back into WB and the requester will appear.
When I bring back the Whap screen, I find the cannot find View requester
up.
You're right about PGS, though. That's why I've decided to buy the
printer despite the problems. (You wouldn't believe the price.) I was
considering just what you suggested about buying another controller. Of
course, with the BB installed and the accelarater I will have run out of
slots. I may try to swap off the Miniscribe for a larger drive as well. 20
megs gets pretty tight when you install all those fonts.
By the way, is there much difference between PGS 2.0 and 2.1?
Bill Perez
San Juan, PR
Bill;
Hummm, are you sure that you have everything connected up properly? The
Kronos is probably one of the very best SCSI devices in the world as far as
being tolerant about connections and terminations but even it will complain
if things are bad enough. How do you have the cabling arrainged?
Feature wise, I don't think that there are any difference between them.
However, I believe that 2.1 is more stable and is faster on screen updates.
,bill
Bill:
I think I discovered the problem. I had a Supra Board with 4 megs when I
purchased an A-2630 with 4 megs of 32-bit ram aboard. I just couldn't get
my XT-BB to load. Finally I remembered that somewhere I had read that if
you had a BB it accounted for something like to megs of the 8 megs
permitted by the Amiga. I removed two megs from the expansion board and
that left me seven. Since things seemed to be running fine, I just left the
other two, although now I realize that I was running with 9. This weekend I
tried to install a Seagate 40-meg SCSI drive on the Kronos, figuring that
if I got rid of the OMTI interface, it might solve the read/write problems.
Lo and behold. The HD would low level format, but would hang up when I
tried to format it.
I returned the drive to the dealer this afternoon, and as I glanced
through the latest Amiga World, I see an offer for a ram expansion card
which will permit you to add up to five megs "for BB users." The bulb
lights up, I bring home the drive again and take out the board. Viola! the
Hard Drive formats and everything seems fine.
Now the new problem. I picked up PageStream V2.1. I try to print and the
system freezes or I get a memory error guru. I've looked through the docs,
and all I can see is that Virtual Page has to be running to use the
LazerXpress. (I didn't have that problem with version 1.8). I ran VPM which
Ernie Gorrie provided me, but when I tried to print form PGS 2.1, the old
freeze. What am I doing wrong?
Bill Perez
San Juan, PR
Bill;
You are not doing anything wrong. Again, you need the newest LazerXpress
printer driver from Softlogic. I believe it is called "LSRXPRS.PRT" on
their bbs. Sorry, I should have remembered to mention that to you.
,bill
Bill:
For the moment I have solved some of the problem. I noticed that PGS has
a preference printer driver, and I am able to print from that. I will try
the Soft-Logiks BBS tonight to see if I can download the one you refer me
to.
If you have any advice regarding Virtual Page, I would appreciate it.
Thanks for the help.
Bill Perez
San Juan, PR
If your SCSI read/write problem occurs when the printer is physically
connected and disappears when it is physically disconnected, my guess would
be that the problem is related to SCSI terminators. (It's ten o'clock. Do
you know where your SCSI terminators are? 🙂
I had some problems with read/write errors when I changed my set-up a
while ago. I messed around with the SCSI terminators for a bit and came up
with a combination that worked. If you think this might be your problem,
let me know and I'll go into more detail about how I resolved my situation.
Ernie Gorrie: Port Coquitlam, BC, Canada
Ernie:
I think my problem is that I had too much memory hooked up to the Amiga.
(See my message to Bill). I took out the Supra board and things to have
settled down. Now I am struggling with PGS v2.1. The docs on the disk say
that to use the LazerXpress you have to be running Virtual Page. I tried
running VPM, but I have not been successful. The system freezes up. I sure
could use some instructions on how VP works. The few paragraphs relating to
it in the LazerXpress WP upgrade docs only make reference to specific steps
to use it with Express Paint. I tried to adapt them to PGS and I still
froze the machine. Any suggestions?
Bill Perez
San Juan, PR
I've been using PgS2.1 with the Xpress without "running" virtual page.
You do have to have the virtualpage.library in the libs: directory,
however. When you refer to the system freezing, are you referring to
attempting to print from PgS2.1 to the Xpress (as opposed to printing to a
virtual page but not printing the virtual page)? i.e. are you referring to
getting the "task held" requester? If so, and you have the
VirtualPage.library in your libs: directory, I think I have the fix for
you.
The PgS2.1 LazerXpress driver that shipped with the disks has a bug.
The correct driver has a size of 12960 bytes Let me know if yours is a
different size and I'll sent the correct driver to you by E-Mail.
Ernie Gorrie: Port Coquitlam, BC, Canada
Ernie:
Thanks for the offer of the upload. I downloaded the new printer driver
from the SoftLogiks BBS last night and everything is fine now. The print
outs really fly now that PGS doesn't have to use the Preference driver.
Everything is working just as I had hoped when I picked up the A2630. PGS
flies making up the page and the LazerXpress spits out the prints
immediately.
Meanwhile, I have had no further incidences of the read/write errors,
once I took out the ram expansion board. Since I only use the BB
occasionally, I may just pull it out and put back the 2-megs of ram. On the
other hand, I never use the five megs I get from the Amiga and accelerator
combined, so I may try to work out some sort of a swap. What I could use
now is a 40 or 60 meg drive with another SCSI controller. Decisions,
decisions. Hah!
Bill Perez
San Juan, PR