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