Printer Spooler

[Gregor]

Is there any native printer spooler program available for OS 4.1 yet? So far all the 68xxx spoolers I have tested have failed, in one way or another.

Under OS 3.x I have used a very small, easy-to-use, commodity type of spooler program, which has been 100% solid and works also perfectly with PageStream which uses parallel port(s) directly. But under OS4.1.6 (classic) this has been 'blacklisted' by OS, and it trashes the WB screen and just locks the device it has been assigned to spool. I have tried everything without luck..

Is there still something to try to get this kind of program to work under 4.1...? (Unfortunately the author has left Amiga a and cannot find the source anymore, so there is nothing to be done at that front).

BTW, I was also wondering... Is there present here any developer who might be interested to create similar 'minimal' type of spooler for 4.1? I could give the 'specifications' if needed .

Regards,

Gregor

[Raziel]

PrintManager by Stephan Rupprecht has a built-in spooler, lightweight too...

note to self: now that my printer is working with the net setup i should try and take a look at this again

Regarding a spooler for OS4.1, i very would much fabcy an in-built one that comes with PrinterPrefs

[Gregor]

PrintManager by Stephan Rupprecht has a built-in spooler, lightweight too...

This is one of the programs I have already tested... It does not work, at least with OS 4.1.6 classic! Either the program or the installation script is broken. The script installed automatically 'PrintManager.os4' into the drawer I asked (and a library into the LIBS:), but the program does not open (or appear into the commodities Exchange list), and it does not give any error messages, either. I tested it both from WB and Cli.

There was also a 68xxx version in the package, and it at least opens normally, but it does not 'trap' or react anyhow to any printing - they go directly to the printer as if there were no spooler at all. I tested both with parallel.device and hyperPAR.device (set by tooltypes). There was also some screen corruption when it was running.

Regards,

Gregor

[Raziel]

PrintManager by Stephan Rupprecht has a built-in spooler, lightweight too...

This is one of the programs I have already tested... It does not work, at least with OS 4.1.6 classic! Either the program or the installation script is broken. The script installed automatically 'PrintManager.os4' into the drawer I asked (and a library into the LIBS:), but the program does not open (or appear into the commodities Exchange list), and it does not give any error messages, either. I tested it both from WB and Cli.

There was also a 68xxx version in the package, and it at least opens normally, but it does not 'trap' or react anyhow to any printing - they go directly to the printer as if there were no spooler at all. I tested both with parallel.device and hyperPAR.device (set by tooltypes). There was also some screen corruption when it was running.

Regards,

Gregor

Where do you connect your printer?

iirc you hvae to redirect the hardware's parallel device to the "normal" parallel device so that PrintManager is able to catrch anything from it.
With OS4 upd 6 (why not upgrade btw?) i "think" there still is a text file in Kickstarts/ which has to be adapted, or was that dropped then already?

What Amiga machine do you use?

hyperpar is a sepcial handler written for use with the old and slow original parallel.device on the classic machines, it's patched into the system and probably doesn't work on AmigaOS4.

If i find the time i'll install it and see if i can get it to run

X1000 Amiga OS4 FE here

[chris]

I vaguely recall writing one when I was messing around trying to get Dot4 working.
Here it is: http://www.unsatisfactorysoftware.co.uk ... =dot4spool

It isn't immediately obvious, but I think (after re-reading my readme several times) that using only the DEVICE tooltype should make it work as a mere print spooler, no matter how your printer is connected.

If you want to redirect parallel.device to spool.device that can be done in the NSD patch configuration (part of SetPatch). I think the file is something like DEVS:nsdpatch.cfg. That's probably a bad idea if you're actually using a parallel printer, as it'll create an infinite loop. Seriously, what software is hard-coded to print to parallel.device these days?

[Raziel]

PrintManager works to an extent.

It picks up the jobs sent to (netprinter.device for me), but it can't cope with the printer connected over the network.
I get an error message from PrintManager telling me "Printer not ready!?" and that's it.

So, sorry

[Gregor]

Where do you connect your printer?

It is irrelevant here where the printer is physically connected if the spooler does not 'catch' any output from programs... As I said I tested also with the 'native' parallel port (= parallel.device) chosen, and it did not change anything.

With OS4 upd 6 (why not upgrade btw?)

Waste of money and time in the case of classic machine with it's 128Mb memory limitation! It is better to wait for new hardware, and invest the pennies there...

i "think" there still is a text file in Kickstarts/ which has to be adapted, or was that dropped then already?

Don't know where are you pointing to... Are you mixing with NSDpatch-file in DEVS:? The lines there (for HyperCom) had no effect to behaviour of the hyperPAR port.

What Amiga machine do you use?

A4000T/CSPPC.

hyperpar is a sepcial handler written for use with the old and slow original parallel.device on the classic machines, it's patched into the system and probably doesn't work on AmigaOS4.

I beg your pardon...?? HyperPAR.device is used only with parallel ports of HyperCom boards! If I remember right, my card is HyperCom 3+. It is clearly faster than the native parallel port, and it definitely works with OS4 !-) I once made a 'fixed' version of the HPR: mountlist for OS4.1, it was also added to the faq file...

Regards,

Gregor

[Raziel]

Yeah sorry, bad memory keeps mixing things up i once knew.

NSDPatch it was.
HyperPAR i mixed with PrintManagers own FASTPAR command.

But regarding the "caught" messages...i made it work by simply changing the tooltype in PrintManagers exe file from paralell.device to netprinter.device.
For testing purposes i also added the save and spool dirs to see if it really catches the files, and it did.

It just refused to send anything over the device, because it was unable to talk to the printer.

edit: typos

[Gregor]

I vaguely recall writing one when I was messing around trying to get Dot4 working.
Here it is: http://www.unsatisfactorysoftware.co.uk ... =dot4spool

It isn't immediately obvious, but I think (after re-reading my readme several times) that using only the DEVICE tooltype should make it work as a mere print spooler, no matter how your printer is connected.

Thanks for this info... I had earlier a look into the readme-file but made the wrong conclusion that it were working only with Dot4 printers.

When I now tried to start it, I got always this error message:

assertion "LibusbBase != NULL" failed: file "autoinit_libusb_base.c", line 31

Does it expect that an USB port is available, or what does it mean...? I do not have any in my machine, and I think I have disabled everything USB-related in the Kicklayout, too.

Regards,

Gregor

[chris]

I vaguely recall writing one when I was messing around trying to get Dot4 working.
Here it is: http://www.unsatisfactorysoftware.co.uk ... =dot4spool

It isn't immediately obvious, but I think (after re-reading my readme several times) that using only the DEVICE tooltype should make it work as a mere print spooler, no matter how your printer is connected.

Thanks for this info... I had earlier a look into the readme-file but made the wrong conclusion that it were working only with Dot4 printers.

Yes, so did I when I read it, it took me a few re-reads to figure out what I'd done!

When I now tried to start it, I got always this error message:

assertion "LibusbBase != NULL" failed: file "autoinit_libusb_base.c", line 31

Does it expect that an USB port is available, or what does it mean...? I do not have any in my machine, and I think I have disabled everything USB-related in the Kicklayout, too.

The USB part needs libusb.library, looks like I've just auto-opened it lazily so it will open it even though it won't need to use it. Install libusb.library and it will work (stick the library in Dot4Spool's directory if you don't want it cluttering up libs: )