HECnet March 2011

hecnet@lists.dfupdate.se

16 participants
100 discussions

Broke my KZPAC - anyone got a spare for sale?

by sampsa＠mac.com

Turns out I only manage to destroy one of the external ports - I see on the card that it has 3 channels, and offers internal HD68 connectors for those. If I get a HD68 - VHDCI cable do you guys think I'll be able to plug in my BA365s into one of the external sockets? Sampsa On 10 Mar 2011, at 19:15, Mark Wickens wrote: On 10/03/11 16:50, Sampsa Laine wrote: I accidentally broke the external port on my KZPAC controller I was taking out of a 4100 Alphaserver - does anybody have a spare one of these? I've seen a few on ebay for about 70 USD but the shipping to the UK they want is crazy. Sampsa No sorry - I'd ordered a card off ebay from a seller who then sent the wrong one (a high voltage diff card - totally useless). I sent it back and he said 'we've got a shipment coming in we may have one in there' and what I *should* have done then is not be trusting and start a dispute to cover all bases. He then ran out the 30 days I had to complain and won't now communicate. It was only GBP 12.00 but that's not the point. He's techbay2000 so buyer beware. He's 'techbay2010'. Mark.

13 years, 1 month

Broke my KZPAC - anyone got a spare for sale?

by mark＠wickensonline.co.uk

On 10/03/11 16:50, Sampsa Laine wrote: I accidentally broke the external port on my KZPAC controller I was taking out of a 4100 Alphaserver - does anybody have a spare one of these? I've seen a few on ebay for about 70 USD but the shipping to the UK they want is crazy. Sampsa No sorry - I'd ordered a card off ebay from a seller who then sent the wrong one (a high voltage diff card - totally useless). I sent it back and he said 'we've got a shipment coming in we may have one in there' and what I *should* have done then is not be trusting and start a dispute to cover all bases. He then ran out the 30 days I had to complain and won't now communicate. It was only GBP 12.00 but that's not the point. He's techbay2000 so buyer beware. He's 'techbay2010'. Mark.

13 years, 1 month

Broke my KZPAC - anyone got a spare for sale?

by sampsa＠mac.com

I accidentally broke the external port on my KZPAC controller I was taking out of a 4100 Alphaserver - does anybody have a spare one of these? I've seen a few on ebay for about 70 USD but the shipping to the UK they want is crazy. Sampsa

13 years, 1 month

Printing to an LA75 using VMS queues and form definitions

by jeep＠scshome.net

LAT boxes sometimes have strange side-effects. I have seen them really screw up the page many times. They seem to work best with Laser's not always so well with dot-matrix units. LAT printer farms were always a source of problems! The good news is that the DECserver Mark is using was one of the better ones for printers. The best unit that I know of is the LATprint (-LNXXD-M). I managed to snag one off of Ebay a while back and have had solid success with it over the past couple of years. -Steve -----Original Message----- From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE [mailto:owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE] On Behalf Of Johnny Billquist Sent: Tuesday, March 08, 2011 19:18 To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE Subject: Re: [HECnet] Printing to an LA75 using VMS queues and form definitions C'mon guys. Mark said he had a problem with getting the forms right, not getting the connection to work. (Or did I miss something?) Johnny On 2011-03-08 23:25, Steve Davidson wrote: Is the LAT server port (at the DECserver) set to connection limit=1? That was something else I seem to remember being a requirement. -Steve -----Original Message----- From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE [mailto:owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE] On Behalf Of Mark Wickens Sent: Tuesday, March 08, 2011 17:10 To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE Subject: Re: [HECnet] Printing to an LA75 using VMS queues and form definitions By default it starts up with DEC compatibility mode on the serial connection and IBM mode on the parallel connection - there is nothing connected to the parallel port. It seems to honour the top and left margin definition ok, I'm wondering whether the 'control library' associated with the printer needs to be customised. The alternative would be to use an equivalent of pr, or maybe even a compiled version of pr under OpenVMS. I couldn't find anything that would independently format a listing file under OpenVMS, although obviously some of the compilers do produce listings in a suitable format. That or install ALLIN1 ;) Regards, Mark. On 08/03/11 22:05, Steve Davidson wrote: Mark, Does the LA75+ have a compatibility mode setting (usually via dip switches)? I seem to remember that it may have a DEC mode and/or an IBM mode and/or somebody else mode. This might make a difference... It's been too long... Oh wait it hasn't been long enough! Yeah, that's it! -Steve -----Original Message----- From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE [mailto:owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE] On Behalf Of Mark Wickens Sent: Tuesday, March 08, 2011 16:59 To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE Subject: Re: [HECnet] Printing to an LA75 using VMS queues and form definitions On 08/03/11 21:51, Steve Davidson wrote: Mark, Do you remember how you initially defined the queue? Hoff is right about them being a pain. Printers and backups were the biggest headaches on VMS at DEC without question. LAT printers (queues) were much worse than directly connected ones! I remember it as being a bit of a moving target on the best of days. -Steve -----Original Message----- From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE [mailto:owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE] On Behalf Of Mark Wickens Sent: Tuesday, March 08, 2011 16:28 To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE Subject: [HECnet] Printing to an LA75 using VMS queues and form definitions Hi guys, I have printing working to my LA75+ dot matrix printer via a spooled VMS queue which communicates via LAT with the printer attached to a DECserver 90L+. Everything is working fine except for two issues: 1. I'd like to be able to print with a form definition which leaves a margin at the top and bottom of the page. I tried this: $ DEFINE/FORM LISTING 3 /WIDTH=132/PAGE=66/MARGIN=(TOP=6,BOTTOM=6)/STOCK=DEFAULT/NOWRAP/TRUN C A TE $ SET QUEUE/DEFAULT=FORM=LISTING LA75$PRINT_ALEPH$ I tried asking Hoff but I think he's sick of my 80's related questions, his response was entitled: Classic printing best left to masochistic perfectionists <http://labs.hoffmanlabs.com/node/766#comment-2424> (http://labs.hoffmanlabs.com/node/766) I think I'm almost there, but the printer appears to be ignoring the bottom margin - I get a top margin fine, and the listing is not exhibiting 'rolling' ie the content of the output is aligned correctly on each page. Anyone got any ideas what I can do? I want to be able to put listings in vertical binders, and that just doesn't work without both top and bottom margins being honoured. Regards, Mark Oh, I think you might just now expose me as a noob... I used DCPS to initially define the queue... forgetting that it's a pointless exercise for this (distinctly non-postscript) printer! Maybe I need to drop the queues and recreate? As it stands the queue looks like this: BUBBLE$$ show queue/full LA75$PRINT_ALEPH$ Terminal queue LA75$PRINT_ALEPH$, idle, on ALEPH::LTA75:, mounted form DEFAULT /BASE_PRIORITY=4 /DEFAULT=(FORM=DEFAULT) Lowercase /OWNER=[SYSTEM] /NO_INITIAL_FF /PROTECTION=(S:M,O:D,G:R,W:S) I deliberately set the LTA75: 'terminal' to /WIDTH=132 and /PAGE=66 which is the page length. The printer starts up in 132 column mode. Mark. -- Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol

13 years, 1 month

Printing to an LA75 using VMS queues and form definitions

by bqt＠softjar.se

C'mon guys. Mark said he had a problem with getting the forms right, not getting the connection to work. (Or did I miss something?) Johnny On 2011-03-08 23:25, Steve Davidson wrote: Is the LAT server port (at the DECserver) set to connection limit=1? That was something else I seem to remember being a requirement. -Steve -----Original Message----- From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE [mailto:owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE] On Behalf Of Mark Wickens Sent: Tuesday, March 08, 2011 17:10 To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE Subject: Re: [HECnet] Printing to an LA75 using VMS queues and form definitions By default it starts up with DEC compatibility mode on the serial connection and IBM mode on the parallel connection - there is nothing connected to the parallel port. It seems to honour the top and left margin definition ok, I'm wondering whether the 'control library' associated with the printer needs to be customised. The alternative would be to use an equivalent of pr, or maybe even a compiled version of pr under OpenVMS. I couldn't find anything that would independently format a listing file under OpenVMS, although obviously some of the compilers do produce listings in a suitable format. That or install ALLIN1 ;) Regards, Mark. On 08/03/11 22:05, Steve Davidson wrote: Mark, Does the LA75+ have a compatibility mode setting (usually via dip switches)? I seem to remember that it may have a DEC mode and/or an IBM mode and/or somebody else mode. This might make a difference... It's been too long... Oh wait it hasn't been long enough! Yeah, that's it! -Steve -----Original Message----- From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE [mailto:owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE] On Behalf Of Mark Wickens Sent: Tuesday, March 08, 2011 16:59 To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE Subject: Re: [HECnet] Printing to an LA75 using VMS queues and form definitions On 08/03/11 21:51, Steve Davidson wrote: Mark, Do you remember how you initially defined the queue? Hoff is right about them being a pain. Printers and backups were the biggest headaches on VMS at DEC without question. LAT printers (queues) were much worse than directly connected ones! I remember it as being a bit of a moving target on the best of days. -Steve -----Original Message----- From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE [mailto:owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE] On Behalf Of Mark Wickens Sent: Tuesday, March 08, 2011 16:28 To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE Subject: [HECnet] Printing to an LA75 using VMS queues and form definitions Hi guys, I have printing working to my LA75+ dot matrix printer via a spooled VMS queue which communicates via LAT with the printer attached to a DECserver 90L+. Everything is working fine except for two issues: 1. I'd like to be able to print with a form definition which leaves a margin at the top and bottom of the page. I tried this: $ DEFINE/FORM LISTING 3 /WIDTH=132/PAGE=66/MARGIN=(TOP=6,BOTTOM=6)/STOCK=DEFAULT/NOWRAP/TRUNC A TE $ SET QUEUE/DEFAULT=FORM=LISTING LA75$PRINT_ALEPH$ I tried asking Hoff but I think he's sick of my 80's related questions, his response was entitled: Classic printing best left to masochistic perfectionists <http://labs.hoffmanlabs.com/node/766#comment-2424> (http://labs.hoffmanlabs.com/node/766) I think I'm almost there, but the printer appears to be ignoring the bottom margin - I get a top margin fine, and the listing is not exhibiting 'rolling' ie the content of the output is aligned correctly on each page. Anyone got any ideas what I can do? I want to be able to put listings in vertical binders, and that just doesn't work without both top and bottom margins being honoured. Regards, Mark Oh, I think you might just now expose me as a noob... I used DCPS to initially define the queue... forgetting that it's a pointless exercise for this (distinctly non-postscript) printer! Maybe I need to drop the queues and recreate? As it stands the queue looks like this: BUBBLE$$ show queue/full LA75$PRINT_ALEPH$ Terminal queue LA75$PRINT_ALEPH$, idle, on ALEPH::LTA75:, mounted form DEFAULT /BASE_PRIORITY=4 /DEFAULT=(FORM=DEFAULT) Lowercase /OWNER=[SYSTEM] /NO_INITIAL_FF /PROTECTION=(S:M,O:D,G:R,W:S) I deliberately set the LTA75: 'terminal' to /WIDTH=132 and /PAGE=66 which is the page length. The printer starts up in 132 column mode. Mark. -- Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol

13 years, 1 month

Printing to an LA75 using VMS queues and form definitions

by jeep＠scshome.net

Is the LAT server port (at the DECserver) set to connection limit=1? That was something else I seem to remember being a requirement. -Steve -----Original Message----- From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE [mailto:owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE] On Behalf Of Mark Wickens Sent: Tuesday, March 08, 2011 17:10 To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE Subject: Re: [HECnet] Printing to an LA75 using VMS queues and form definitions By default it starts up with DEC compatibility mode on the serial connection and IBM mode on the parallel connection - there is nothing connected to the parallel port. It seems to honour the top and left margin definition ok, I'm wondering whether the 'control library' associated with the printer needs to be customised. The alternative would be to use an equivalent of pr, or maybe even a compiled version of pr under OpenVMS. I couldn't find anything that would independently format a listing file under OpenVMS, although obviously some of the compilers do produce listings in a suitable format. That or install ALLIN1 ;) Regards, Mark. On 08/03/11 22:05, Steve Davidson wrote: Mark, Does the LA75+ have a compatibility mode setting (usually via dip switches)? I seem to remember that it may have a DEC mode and/or an IBM mode and/or somebody else mode. This might make a difference... It's been too long... Oh wait it hasn't been long enough! Yeah, that's it! -Steve -----Original Message----- From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE [mailto:owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE] On Behalf Of Mark Wickens Sent: Tuesday, March 08, 2011 16:59 To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE Subject: Re: [HECnet] Printing to an LA75 using VMS queues and form definitions On 08/03/11 21:51, Steve Davidson wrote: Mark, Do you remember how you initially defined the queue? Hoff is right about them being a pain. Printers and backups were the biggest headaches on VMS at DEC without question. LAT printers (queues) were much worse than directly connected ones! I remember it as being a bit of a moving target on the best of days. -Steve -----Original Message----- From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE [mailto:owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE] On Behalf Of Mark Wickens Sent: Tuesday, March 08, 2011 16:28 To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE Subject: [HECnet] Printing to an LA75 using VMS queues and form definitions Hi guys, I have printing working to my LA75+ dot matrix printer via a spooled VMS queue which communicates via LAT with the printer attached to a DECserver 90L+. Everything is working fine except for two issues: 1. I'd like to be able to print with a form definition which leaves a margin at the top and bottom of the page. I tried this: $ DEFINE/FORM LISTING 3 /WIDTH=132/PAGE=66/MARGIN=(TOP=6,BOTTOM=6)/STOCK=DEFAULT/NOWRAP/TRUNC A TE $ SET QUEUE/DEFAULT=FORM=LISTING LA75$PRINT_ALEPH$ I tried asking Hoff but I think he's sick of my 80's related questions, his response was entitled: Classic printing best left to masochistic perfectionists <http://labs.hoffmanlabs.com/node/766#comment-2424> (http://labs.hoffmanlabs.com/node/766) I think I'm almost there, but the printer appears to be ignoring the bottom margin - I get a top margin fine, and the listing is not exhibiting 'rolling' ie the content of the output is aligned correctly on each page. Anyone got any ideas what I can do? I want to be able to put listings in vertical binders, and that just doesn't work without both top and bottom margins being honoured. Regards, Mark Oh, I think you might just now expose me as a noob... I used DCPS to initially define the queue... forgetting that it's a pointless exercise for this (distinctly non-postscript) printer! Maybe I need to drop the queues and recreate? As it stands the queue looks like this: BUBBLE$$ show queue/full LA75$PRINT_ALEPH$ Terminal queue LA75$PRINT_ALEPH$, idle, on ALEPH::LTA75:, mounted form DEFAULT /BASE_PRIORITY=4 /DEFAULT=(FORM=DEFAULT) Lowercase /OWNER=[SYSTEM] /NO_INITIAL_FF /PROTECTION=(S:M,O:D,G:R,W:S) I deliberately set the LTA75: 'terminal' to /WIDTH=132 and /PAGE=66 which is the page length. The printer starts up in 132 column mode. Mark.

13 years, 1 month

Printing to an LA75 using VMS queues and form definitions

by gregg.drwho8＠gmail.com

On Tue, Mar 8, 2011 at 5:03 PM, Mark Wickens wrote: On 08/03/11 21:49, Gregg Levine wrote: On Tue, Mar 8, 2011 at 4:43 PM, Mark Wickens wrote: On 08/03/11 21:33, Gregg Levine wrote: On Tue, Mar 8, 2011 at 4:27 PM, Mark Wickens wrote: Hi guys, I have printing working to my LA75+ dot matrix printer via a spooled VMS queue which communicates via LAT with the printer attached to a DECserver 90L+. Everything is working fine except for two issues: 1. I'd like to be able to print with a form definition which leaves a margin at the top and bottom of the page. I tried this: $ DEFINE/FORM LISTING 3 /WIDTH=132/PAGE=66/MARGIN=(TOP=6,BOTTOM=6)/STOCK=DEFAULT/NOWRAP/TRUNCATE $ SET QUEUE/DEFAULT=FORM=LISTING LA75$PRINT_ALEPH$ I tried asking Hoff but I think he's sick of my 80's related questions, his response was entitled: Classic printing best left to masochistic perfectionists <http://labs.hoffmanlabs.com/node/766#comment-2424> (http://labs.hoffmanlabs.com/node/766) I think I'm almost there, but the printer appears to be ignoring the bottom margin - I get a top margin fine, and the listing is not exhibiting 'rolling' ie the content of the output is aligned correctly on each page. Anyone got any ideas what I can do? I want to be able to put listings in vertical binders, and that just doesn't work without both top and bottom margins being honoured. Regards, Mark Hello! Mark I have several of those terminal servers here. How is yours configured, and even wired to your system? (or systems?) ----- Gregg C Levine gregg.drwho8 at gmail.com "This signature fought the Time Wars, time and again." Hi Greg, It is wired to a 10MB router that has both a 10base2 (BNC) connector and some 10baseT (RJ45) connectors via a thin wire BNC cable connected to T-pieces with a 50 ohm terminator on each end. The 10MB router is connected to a Netgear gigabit router via CAT-5 and then out to the rest of the world. I configured the terminal server by connecting a terminal/pc terminal emulator to port 1 via a DB9 to RJ45 cable. The management interface allows you to then specify the name of the decserver and the name of the port, and whether it is a printer/terminal port, speed, etc. Once the port was configured I used the decserver/port name in the LAT configuration on the VAX. I defined a virtual terminal pointing to that decserver/port then pointed the printer queue to that. The printer connects at 4800 baud to the specified printer port via a MMJ to MMJ cable that came with it. Hope that sheds some light, Mark. Hello! Oh yes. With one of mine I had gotten as far as the configuration steps. But the connectivity issues were the big one. Do you recall who makes this "10MB router that has both a 10base2 (BNC) connector and some 10baseT (RJ45) connectors". I've been trying to find one with limited success about the time the first one arrived here. Strangely enough both it, and a VAX Station 3100 arrived here from a fellow on the original Linux-VAX list. There was one of those in the list, but that went to a different individual, it might have been you, then again I can't recall. That VAX Station 3100 is next to get working, perhaps I'll have the time to do so, this summer or later. ----- Gregg C Levine gregg.drwho8 at gmail.com "This signature fought the Time Wars, time and again." Greg, This particular router is a 'no-name' white box. It was actually new when I bought it off ebay, probably about 2 years ago. If you create an ebay search for '(10base2, BNC) router' something will come up (you may need to say 'include description'). I have another one which has more ports, made my Allied Telesis (always a good brand in my experience). Yes - I think the boxes did go to me. The 90M is invaluable for serving serial consoles out to TCP/IP telnet connections. The 90L+ does a fine job of handling the printer, and doesn't require any configuration for firmware downloading (it also boots within about 10 seconds). Regards, Mark. Hello! Well it get stranger. Ebay did indeed put up something. It might be the one we were discussing. It looked to be wearing a module made by the gang behind the terminal server. The price that fellow wanted was too much for my interests. Amazon had a few things, but one of them came almost close. The hint was "almost", one end was indeed a COAX port, but not BNC, it was wearing the classic F1 style. I suspect that I might end up trolling the swap meets next.... ----- Gregg C Levine gregg.drwho8 at gmail.com "This signature fought the Time Wars, time and again."

13 years, 1 month

Printing to an LA75 using VMS queues and form definitions

by mark＠wickensonline.co.uk

By default it starts up with DEC compatibility mode on the serial connection and IBM mode on the parallel connection - there is nothing connected to the parallel port. It seems to honour the top and left margin definition ok, I'm wondering whether the 'control library' associated with the printer needs to be customised. The alternative would be to use an equivalent of pr, or maybe even a compiled version of pr under OpenVMS. I couldn't find anything that would independently format a listing file under OpenVMS, although obviously some of the compilers do produce listings in a suitable format. That or install ALLIN1 ;) Regards, Mark. On 08/03/11 22:05, Steve Davidson wrote: Mark, Does the LA75+ have a compatibility mode setting (usually via dip switches)? I seem to remember that it may have a DEC mode and/or an IBM mode and/or somebody else mode. This might make a difference... It's been too long... Oh wait it hasn't been long enough! Yeah, that's it! -Steve -----Original Message----- From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE [mailto:owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE] On Behalf Of Mark Wickens Sent: Tuesday, March 08, 2011 16:59 To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE Subject: Re: [HECnet] Printing to an LA75 using VMS queues and form definitions On 08/03/11 21:51, Steve Davidson wrote: Mark, Do you remember how you initially defined the queue? Hoff is right about them being a pain. Printers and backups were the biggest headaches on VMS at DEC without question. LAT printers (queues) were much worse than directly connected ones! I remember it as being a bit of a moving target on the best of days. -Steve -----Original Message----- From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE [mailto:owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE] On Behalf Of Mark Wickens Sent: Tuesday, March 08, 2011 16:28 To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE Subject: [HECnet] Printing to an LA75 using VMS queues and form definitions Hi guys, I have printing working to my LA75+ dot matrix printer via a spooled VMS queue which communicates via LAT with the printer attached to a DECserver 90L+. Everything is working fine except for two issues: 1. I'd like to be able to print with a form definition which leaves a margin at the top and bottom of the page. I tried this: $ DEFINE/FORM LISTING 3 /WIDTH=132/PAGE=66/MARGIN=(TOP=6,BOTTOM=6)/STOCK=DEFAULT/NOWRAP/TRUNCA TE $ SET QUEUE/DEFAULT=FORM=LISTING LA75$PRINT_ALEPH$ I tried asking Hoff but I think he's sick of my 80's related questions, his response was entitled: Classic printing best left to masochistic perfectionists <http://labs.hoffmanlabs.com/node/766#comment-2424> (http://labs.hoffmanlabs.com/node/766) I think I'm almost there, but the printer appears to be ignoring the bottom margin - I get a top margin fine, and the listing is not exhibiting 'rolling' ie the content of the output is aligned correctly on each page. Anyone got any ideas what I can do? I want to be able to put listings in vertical binders, and that just doesn't work without both top and bottom margins being honoured. Regards, Mark Oh, I think you might just now expose me as a noob... I used DCPS to initially define the queue... forgetting that it's a pointless exercise for this (distinctly non-postscript) printer! Maybe I need to drop the queues and recreate? As it stands the queue looks like this: BUBBLE$$ show queue/full LA75$PRINT_ALEPH$ Terminal queue LA75$PRINT_ALEPH$, idle, on ALEPH::LTA75:, mounted form DEFAULT /BASE_PRIORITY=4 /DEFAULT=(FORM=DEFAULT) Lowercase /OWNER=[SYSTEM] /NO_INITIAL_FF /PROTECTION=(S:M,O:D,G:R,W:S) I deliberately set the LTA75: 'terminal' to /WIDTH=132 and /PAGE=66 which is the page length. The printer starts up in 132 column mode. Mark.

13 years, 1 month

Printing to an LA75 using VMS queues and form definitions

by jeep＠scshome.net

Mark, Does the LA75+ have a compatibility mode setting (usually via dip switches)? I seem to remember that it may have a DEC mode and/or an IBM mode and/or somebody else mode. This might make a difference... It's been too long... Oh wait it hasn't been long enough! Yeah, that's it! -Steve -----Original Message----- From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE [mailto:owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE] On Behalf Of Mark Wickens Sent: Tuesday, March 08, 2011 16:59 To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE Subject: Re: [HECnet] Printing to an LA75 using VMS queues and form definitions On 08/03/11 21:51, Steve Davidson wrote: Mark, Do you remember how you initially defined the queue? Hoff is right about them being a pain. Printers and backups were the biggest headaches on VMS at DEC without question. LAT printers (queues) were much worse than directly connected ones! I remember it as being a bit of a moving target on the best of days. -Steve -----Original Message----- From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE [mailto:owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE] On Behalf Of Mark Wickens Sent: Tuesday, March 08, 2011 16:28 To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE Subject: [HECnet] Printing to an LA75 using VMS queues and form definitions Hi guys, I have printing working to my LA75+ dot matrix printer via a spooled VMS queue which communicates via LAT with the printer attached to a DECserver 90L+. Everything is working fine except for two issues: 1. I'd like to be able to print with a form definition which leaves a margin at the top and bottom of the page. I tried this: $ DEFINE/FORM LISTING 3 /WIDTH=132/PAGE=66/MARGIN=(TOP=6,BOTTOM=6)/STOCK=DEFAULT/NOWRAP/TRUNCA TE $ SET QUEUE/DEFAULT=FORM=LISTING LA75$PRINT_ALEPH$ I tried asking Hoff but I think he's sick of my 80's related questions, his response was entitled: Classic printing best left to masochistic perfectionists <http://labs.hoffmanlabs.com/node/766#comment-2424> (http://labs.hoffmanlabs.com/node/766) I think I'm almost there, but the printer appears to be ignoring the bottom margin - I get a top margin fine, and the listing is not exhibiting 'rolling' ie the content of the output is aligned correctly on each page. Anyone got any ideas what I can do? I want to be able to put listings in vertical binders, and that just doesn't work without both top and bottom margins being honoured. Regards, Mark Oh, I think you might just now expose me as a noob... I used DCPS to initially define the queue... forgetting that it's a pointless exercise for this (distinctly non-postscript) printer! Maybe I need to drop the queues and recreate? As it stands the queue looks like this: BUBBLE$$ show queue/full LA75$PRINT_ALEPH$ Terminal queue LA75$PRINT_ALEPH$, idle, on ALEPH::LTA75:, mounted form DEFAULT /BASE_PRIORITY=4 /DEFAULT=(FORM=DEFAULT) Lowercase /OWNER=[SYSTEM] /NO_INITIAL_FF /PROTECTION=(S:M,O:D,G:R,W:S) I deliberately set the LTA75: 'terminal' to /WIDTH=132 and /PAGE=66 which is the page length. The printer starts up in 132 column mode. Mark.

13 years, 1 month

Printing to an LA75 using VMS queues and form definitions

by mark＠wickensonline.co.uk

On 08/03/11 21:49, Gregg Levine wrote: On Tue, Mar 8, 2011 at 4:43 PM, Mark Wickens wrote: On 08/03/11 21:33, Gregg Levine wrote: On Tue, Mar 8, 2011 at 4:27 PM, Mark Wickens wrote: Hi guys, I have printing working to my LA75+ dot matrix printer via a spooled VMS queue which communicates via LAT with the printer attached to a DECserver 90L+. Everything is working fine except for two issues: 1. I'd like to be able to print with a form definition which leaves a margin at the top and bottom of the page. I tried this: $ DEFINE/FORM LISTING 3 /WIDTH=132/PAGE=66/MARGIN=(TOP=6,BOTTOM=6)/STOCK=DEFAULT/NOWRAP/TRUNCATE $ SET QUEUE/DEFAULT=FORM=LISTING LA75$PRINT_ALEPH$ I tried asking Hoff but I think he's sick of my 80's related questions, his response was entitled: Classic printing best left to masochistic perfectionists <http://labs.hoffmanlabs.com/node/766#comment-2424> (http://labs.hoffmanlabs.com/node/766) I think I'm almost there, but the printer appears to be ignoring the bottom margin - I get a top margin fine, and the listing is not exhibiting 'rolling' ie the content of the output is aligned correctly on each page. Anyone got any ideas what I can do? I want to be able to put listings in vertical binders, and that just doesn't work without both top and bottom margins being honoured. Regards, Mark Hello! Mark I have several of those terminal servers here. How is yours configured, and even wired to your system? (or systems?) ----- Gregg C Levine gregg.drwho8 at gmail.com "This signature fought the Time Wars, time and again." Hi Greg, It is wired to a 10MB router that has both a 10base2 (BNC) connector and some 10baseT (RJ45) connectors via a thin wire BNC cable connected to T-pieces with a 50 ohm terminator on each end. The 10MB router is connected to a Netgear gigabit router via CAT-5 and then out to the rest of the world. I configured the terminal server by connecting a terminal/pc terminal emulator to port 1 via a DB9 to RJ45 cable. The management interface allows you to then specify the name of the decserver and the name of the port, and whether it is a printer/terminal port, speed, etc. Once the port was configured I used the decserver/port name in the LAT configuration on the VAX. I defined a virtual terminal pointing to that decserver/port then pointed the printer queue to that. The printer connects at 4800 baud to the specified printer port via a MMJ to MMJ cable that came with it. Hope that sheds some light, Mark. Hello! Oh yes. With one of mine I had gotten as far as the configuration steps. But the connectivity issues were the big one. Do you recall who makes this "10MB router that has both a 10base2 (BNC) connector and some 10baseT (RJ45) connectors". I've been trying to find one with limited success about the time the first one arrived here. Strangely enough both it, and a VAX Station 3100 arrived here from a fellow on the original Linux-VAX list. There was one of those in the list, but that went to a different individual, it might have been you, then again I can't recall. That VAX Station 3100 is next to get working, perhaps I'll have the time to do so, this summer or later. ----- Gregg C Levine gregg.drwho8 at gmail.com "This signature fought the Time Wars, time and again." Greg, This particular router is a 'no-name' white box. It was actually new when I bought it off ebay, probably about 2 years ago. If you create an ebay search for '(10base2, BNC) router' something will come up (you may need to say 'include description'). I have another one which has more ports, made my Allied Telesis (always a good brand in my experience). Yes - I think the boxes did go to me. The 90M is invaluable for serving serial consoles out to TCP/IP telnet connections. The 90L+ does a fine job of handling the printer, and doesn't require any configuration for firmware downloading (it also boots within about 10 seconds). Regards, Mark.

13 years, 1 month

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HECnet March 2011