New Printer Woes
15 messages in this thread
I need some help. I just bought an Epson Action Laser 1000 laser printer and I
can't get it to work with my Amiga 500. I have tried using different printer
drivers, but nothing works. I have even sent a file to the PAR: device to see
if I can bypass the drivers, but that doesn't work either. The printer works
with my mothers clone laptop, so I know there is nothing wrong with it. The
Amiga works with a dot matrix printer so I don't think it's a hardware problem.
I set the laser printer to dump to hard copy so I could see what the Amiga is
sending to it, but the printer only sees one character. I have tried three
different emulations for the printer, HP LaserJet IIP, Epson LQ, and Epson FX,
but got nada. I have just about reached the end of my rope and have no idea
what to do to get this thing working other than getting a new Amiga. I would
love to have a new Amiga, but having just shelled out $700 for the
printer……….8-)
James Du Bois via Whap!
Okay – Is the cable good? That's the first question. You send to PAR:
and the printer only gets one character – is there a handshaking
problem? (i.e. is the printer setting some kind of busy signal?) It's
been a long time since I've looked at printer problems, but that's
where I'd start.
Michael,
I believe the cable is good, since I hooked up an IBM clone using the cable
and it worked. My Amiga works with a Panasonic KX-1080i printer through the
same cable, so I'm not sure what the problem is. Is there a program that will
watch the parallel port and report what is going on? Maybe I should get the
serial interface and just forget the parallel port.
I would really like to get the printer working with my Amiga.
James Du Bois via Whap!
Okay – when you use that cable with the "Bad" printer and the IBM – it works?
I'm far away from my Amiga right now (on the opposite coast, actually) so I'm
digging in my memory for ideas. The first that comes to mind is that the
printer is using some kind of handshaking that the Amiga isn't recognizing (or
the reverse). Check to see if they are using consistant settings for XON/XOFF,
for example.
As far as monitoring the parallel port – are you familiar with "cmd"? This
command will temporarily re-route the printer output to a file. So, you could
examine what the amiga is sending – but not what the printer is replying.
One other thing – the Amiga parallel port is non-standard in that it provides
+5v power for things like digitizers and genlocks. The power is on pins that
are normally unused – but if the cable you are using passes those lines through
to the printer, it could be getting confused.
Can I butt in for some help?
I have been fighting a problem with a Fusion Forty '040 not printing to a
Deskjet. I always get gibberish. I tried your idea with CMD and found a
clue. The first text file sent (this message) was prefixed with
@06d0A0b2q0s0U002e064F004l074M
The next file with caches off printed OK as usual. But when I tried this
file again with the caches back on I got a normally printed file and CMD
capture didn't have the strange header at the top.
This is very promising, but what does it mean? With this information can
you guess what might be happening?
humph. I'd really be just guessing; but it sounds like the printer device has
some initial garbage in it – i.e., the cache was initially corrupt, but once
the printer ran a few times it was straightened out. This is plausible, but
need to find a Fusion 40 owner and ask him.
Another possibility is to look up your printer's reset sequence and write a
small script to echo >prt: "reset sequence".
You could put that in your user-startup so that the cache gets flushed before
you ever try to print anything.
Michael-
This is most helpful. Thankyou.
Could the "re-set sequence" be called somethingelse? I've looked thru the
DeskJet manual, but it is rather overwhelming.
–Paul < Motorola Inside >
Let's see. Words I would look for are "initialize" and "reset" Basically, what
this sequence does is cause the printer to go through it's power-up operations
again. I suggessted you send that because it should have no effect on actual
printer performance, but it should reset the cache problems you speak of.
Again, you really need to talk to someone who has a fusion/40 to get a really
good answer to this. chances are they've had the same problem.
Have you tried calling the manufacturer?
I follow you now.
RCS doesn't have a clue, and Ben at BlackBelt is the only other user I
know of. The CMD file I saved had garbage in the first eight bytes. Is
this still indicative of a printer cache problem?
–Paul < Motorola Inside >
That's the thing – something is generating garbage at the beginning of your
first job. If I understand you correctly you said 1) Only the first job had
the problem 2) The problem went away when the cache was turned off.
Are you using the latest and greatest printer device?
Anyway, by making your first print job a printer-reset call, you should be able
to get around this problem.
It could be what your Amiga is doing (yes, it may be the Amiga rather than
the accelerator) is doing an InitPrinter. That is, sending printer set-up
codes to set it to all the settings in Preferences. There's an icon in 1.2/1.3
by that name, and although I never used it, the one time I used CMD, I got a
bunch of escape codes at the beginning to set the printer to my Prefs/Printer
settings. Check your printer driver and the printer's manual to see if there
aren't some matches here. Good luck!
Michael,
If the Amiga has +5 volts on certain lines in the parallel port, could I try
cutting those lines in a new cable? ( I don't want to mess up a working cable.)
I did discover something strange when I tested the printer, I tried to print
a page but got one character on the page. I pushed the form feed button and
the page came out with one character in the upper left corner. It then accepted
another character from the Amiga. I think printing one character per page is a
handshaking problem, but I don't know what to do about it. I may go ahead and
buy the serial interface for the printer and avoid the parallel port
altogether.
James Du Bois via Whap!
Honestly, the parallel port is faster and will have >fewer< hand shaking
settings to worry about.
The 1 character per page (are the the right characters) does sound like a hand
shaking thing. Did you check out XON/XOFF like I suggested?
As for cutting the wires – you should be able to buy the right printer cable
for your system. Try calling Redmond Cable. They advertise in the Amiga mags
and I've heard very good things about them. they may even be able to help
diagnose your problem.
Michael,
Thank you, it was a handshaking problem, but had to do with the delay of the
busy line. It was set at the factory at one minute, and the Amiga would
timeout after 20 seconds. I changed it to 0 and now everything works fine.
Thanks for all the suggestions.
James Du Bois via Whap!
Good deal. Glad it works now.