APPENDIX N:

NON-STANDARD PRINTERS

========================================================================
B0193XK, Rev A

            18.9  Adding Nonstandard Printers to I/A Series Systems

    Support for a new printer type on the I/A Series system is a product enhancement
  request. The I/A Series Commserver is not an industry standard connection like the
  parallel port on an AT style Personal Computer. The two current types of
  monochrome/report type printers, the Okidata and Brother printers, require special
  Foxboro made cables in order to function properly on the Commserver. Also, 
  SystemConfigurator and Software Install only allow selecting from a list of Foxboro
  applied printers, there is no mechanism to configure individual options for a specific
  type of printer. With respect to special device drivers, the VENIX/Vrtx (AP10/20 & PW),
  SUN OS 4.1 (Model 50) and Solaris (Model 51), all allow specifying how the "lp" spooler
  should function with a specific printer.

     To apply a nonstandard printer to an I/A Series Commserver for monochrome ASCII
  output (i.e. reports, file print, etc.) a 25 pin cable would be needed to connect to
  Foxboro cable P0800AZ, which connects to the Commserver.

   The P0800AZ cable is as follows:
   
        Pin 2   TD
        Pin 3   RD
        Pin 4   RTS
        Pin 5   CTS
        Pin 6   DSR
        Pin 7   GND
        Pin 8   DCD
        Pin 20 DTR
        Flow control is XON/OFF
        Baud rate is 9600

   On I/A Series, a Dot-Matrix printer should be configured. This expects an Epson
 emulation printer. Most I/A Series reports are ASCII data plus linefeed characters. Any
 changes, setup codes, mapping for linefeed, etc. which are required for the specific
 printer can be made to the lp spooler by modifying /etc/termcap on VENIX/Vrtx (AP10/20 &
 PW), /etc/printcap SUN OS 4.1 (Model 50)and the /etc/lp/interfaces/lp_standard file on
 Solaris (Model 51).

   A common issue is the need to map linefeed characters to carriage-return/linefeed
 character pairs. This occurs when implementing printers designed for DOS-based operating
 systems on a UNIX system. In DOS, ASCII files contain both a linefeed and
 carriage-return which is used by the printer. A discussion of this is provided below:
 (as an excerpt from PEN 349 REV B Hewlett-Packard Color InkJet Printer (PaintJet)
 Replacement.)

1