[tech] Wierd printing things

[Grahame Bowland]

> On Dec 31, Nick Bannon scrawled :

> On Fri, Dec 31, 1999 at 05:10:16PM +0800, Grahame Bowland wrote:
> [...]
> > form of PCL for the thing. It would simplify getting this going with
> > lpr if there was a way of creating a /dev/ entry that forwards data
> > sent to it to a port on a remote host. Is there any way of doing this,
> > or is IHG doomed to another strange script?
> [...]
> 
> Aha - your trouble is that lpr will only filter for local printers. (eg
> /dev/lp0)
> 
> The basic idea is to remove lpr and replace it with lprng, then follow
> the HOWTO, using a filtered bounce queue. Rather than run ghostscript
> directly, you might want to use a "magicfilter" script to filter it.
> 
> Your /etc/printcap might then look something like ;
> 
> hp1|hp1 (HPIIIsi in Computer Section)
>         :lp=hp1 at lpr
>         :bq=text at printer.some.domain.com.au
>         :sd=/var/spool/lpd/hp1
>         :if=/usr/local/filters/magic-hpIIIsi
> 
> There's also a dedicated print filter for HP/PCL printers which might
> be better - ifhp. I think it pokes data into the printer via TCP port
> 9100 rather than LPR protocol.

Hmm - this printer seems to accept connections on 10001, but I'll have a
look at this on Tuesday morning. It's actually quite cool - you just
send stuff (TM) to that port and it prints it when you close the connection.
Toshiba of course offer no support for Linux so I've been working this out
from scratch. (You should see my hacked text filter -grin-)

Thanks :)

-- 
Grahame Bowland - UCC Sysadmin, Ordinary Committee Member

Email: gbowland(a)ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au
  Web: http://users.wantree.com.au/~bowest/gmb.html