In the past I thought we were able to do multiple copies of slave print jobs
by setting the Number of Copies to 2 (or however many) in the Printer
Properties of the Windows printer and now it does not seem to work.

I am running AccuTerm 5.2a. The Print Setup for Slave Print is set to Text
Mode. If I change to Graphics Mode and print, it actually prints multiple
copies, but in Text Mode it only prints one copy. I can not use Graphics
Mode because it manipulates the output and printer control codes are not
used.

Does anyone have a workaround for this?

Thanks,

Steve

Hi Steve -

No workaround except for sending the data from the host twice. When
AccuTerm is in Text mode, it simply passes the data received from the
host to the Windows spooler, which sends it on to the printer. In
Graphics mode, the data is "drawn" on a page using the Windows printer
driver, thus you can specify the number of copies, font, etc. Tradeoffs
.... tradeoffs ...

Thanks,

Peter

Hi Pete (and Steve)..

Boy it's good to see someone else getting through here... Doesn't that
other gentleman ever sleep?

Cheers

Steve,

You don't mention your platform, but if D3 then how about using the
sp-assign copies + "alternate port" feature, e.g.

:sp-assign 2 as
:sp-assign ?

Line# Status Copies Form# Device
113 s a 2 0

Functionality depends on your terminal emulation, but I have had good
success with VT100 and Wyse 60. Just "sp-assign as" then print whatever,
and voila, local print-out. I use this feature a lot for remote ssh
users, who get "sp-assign a" in their login proc, so that whenever they
print anything it comes out on their local windows printer.

Here are the relevant parts from the 'sp-assign' entry in ref:

number.copies (integer number in the range 1-125) indicating
the number of copies. (default = one).

a Ouput goes to the alternate port on the current terminal. To
function correctly, the auxiliary port on and off commands must
be defined for the current terminal in the devices file. Note
that the a option does not suppress output to the system printer
by default. To disable system printer output, use the "s" option
as well.

/Scott Ballinger
Pareto Corporation
Edmonds WA USA
206 713 6006



Peter Schellenbach wrote:

I tried it using Viewpoint and it did NOT work.

Too bad. It seems like it should work. Is AccuTerm or D3 falling down on
this one?

Steve

"Scott Ballinger" <scott (AT) TiredOfSpamButStillatPareto (DOT) net> wrote

There are a usually many flavors of "adds" and "viewpoint" terminals in
the devices file. You may need to try different ones. You can also
tweak the terminal definition item using "define-terminal."

It may be that the viewpoint will not support this feature. My
recollection is that a viewpoint does not have a "pass-through" print
mode (the text going to the slave port also scrolls past on the screen-
pretty ugly. That's why they called it a "slave" port and not a
"printer" port.) If you don't want to change your terminal type (why
not by the way?... viewpoint does not support more than one screen
attribute at a time and is hideous in many other ways as well) then you
could use the accuterm command to change the emulation to one that does
support pass-through printing (e.g. vt100), execute a "term vt100"
command on d3, execute "sp-assign as", print something, then switch it
all back.

/Scott

Scott,

Thanks for your help, but I tried VT100 and that did Not print two copies
either.

Thanks,

Steve

"Scott Ballinger" <scott.ballinger (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote

Pete,

Let's say we use Graphics Mode to Slave Print. What guidelines should I use
to do this properly. I am used to providing Esc sequences or PCL for Hp
printers.

How do I control the look of the output with Text in Graphics Mode?

Steve

"Peter Schellenbach" <pjs (AT) asent (DOT) com> wrote

"Steve S" wrote
{accuterm 5.2a not providing 'multiple copies' feature in text print mode}

a linux/unix printer server; final printout could arrive at any shared printer
in the office. You'd need to set up a printer queue on that server which
detects and strips out configuration lines like
MYCROFTXXX COPIES=7
and a way to insinuate such a line into your print data.

Bit of a kludge, but you _did_ ask...

While you're at it, have the server retain a spare copy of 'last job printed'
in /tmp so you can retransmit it if the paper jams at mid-report. If you
have to set up a new print server, suggest you omit the graphical "X" part
and drop back to a really old release of the operating system, so any old
pc you can rescue from the dumpster will have enough resources to suffice.