PRO/5 Printers Under MS-DOS and MS-DOS Networks

Description

Printers are defined through ALIAS lines in the config.bbx file. The realname and modes parameters are relevant, and are described below.

alias bbxname realname comment modes

realname

Most MS-DOS systems allow you to refer to a printer device as /dev/lpt1, etc. If your MS-DOS system does not allow the name to be preceded by "/dev/," you may want to try using the base of the name, i.e., "lpt1" for "/dev/lpt1". Typical MS-DOS names for devices are:

LPT1, LPT2, LPT3, COM1, COM2.

modes

Some printer modes are used only on MS-DOS and MS-DOS Networks,

Mode	Description
`DOSWAITn`	Tells PRO/5 to modify the BIOS memory for the MS-DOS Networks device LPTn, where the n in DOSWAIT corresponds to the device number. This causes the BIOS to wait for a minimum amount of time when the device is busy. This allows PRO/5 to send blocks of data to the device, rather than characters, for improved printing speed. When this option is not enabled, PRO/5 must test to see if the device is ready whenever PRO/5 is ready to send a byte of data. This option cannot be used on any device that is not a real hardware LPT port such as the Novell spooler or a COM device. Using this on hardware that is not 100% compatible with an IBM-PC or PC/AT can cause unpredictable behavior.

Mode

Description

DOSWAITn

Tells PRO/5 to modify the BIOS memory for the MS-DOS Networks device LPTn, where the n in DOSWAIT corresponds to the device number. This causes the BIOS to wait for a minimum amount of time when the device is busy. This allows PRO/5 to send blocks of data to the device, rather than characters, for improved printing speed. When this option is not enabled, PRO/5 must test to see if the device is ready whenever PRO/5 is ready to send a byte of data. This option cannot be used on any device that is not a real hardware LPT port such as the Novell spooler or a COM device. Using this on hardware that is not 100% compatible with an IBM-PC or PC/AT can cause unpredictable behavior.