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Re: printer error messages

Harry Binswanger wrote:
Well. first of all, logic would suggest that assigning the same
printer to all those ports is really going to scramble things.
But someone on this list said that it wouldn't (unless I misread it).
It's moot, though, because I only started adding the same printer to
different LPTs late in the debugging game.

Does Lita have a real lpt port? 25-pin D shell connector on back?

No.
If it's a new laptop, I very much doubt it. So issue
net use lpt2 /DELETE
and then
net use lpt3 /DELETE
to get rid of them.

Check that Windows can print to canonkrumpet. Then try printing
from edit.com.

No need to try that again, thanks. It's not the issue.
Yet I can print from Windows (e.g., Notepad) and I can see Krumpet's
files with Xy by entering:

K:
In fact, in DOS, I can log on to K: and see its files.

And so can any cracker who gets into your system. W2K has
conniption fits when I share a whole drive, even if there's
nothing but data on it. You should NEVER, ever, have C:\ shared.
That's one reason Robert and I are so vehement about
partitioning. (Lot's of others, too. Reasons, and people who
swear by partitioning.)

Warning noted.
 But at the K:
prompt in DOS, the following produces no result (except giving me
another K: prompt):

K:>Type c:\test.txt > LPT1

That is NOT the way to print to a port from DOS.

You're awfully vehement in your wrongness. I like that in a woman.
I seem to have tossed all my MS-DOS books. The one I do have, on
batch file programming, only mentions type in connection with
displaying; copy is cited for sending things to a com or lpt
port. My book on Novell DOS (which was what I had used from many
years before I was dragged, kicking and screaming, back to
Redmond Rubbish) definitely says to use type to display on
screen, copy to send elsewhere.

The command is

copy d:\path\filename.ext lpt1

"copy," not "type" (which is used for displaying files on
screen),
except when it's routed to another, what's it called, console? such as
to LPTn--which, incidentally, is why DOS didn't object to my command.

Type reads a file from the disk and sends it to the indicated item--with
the screen being the default. In the old CP/M days, there used to be
four such items: CON:, PRN:, COM:, and LST: (if memory serves). CP/M
also had Type, and you could Type to any of the above (as well as PIP to
them). MS-DOS took over the Type command from CP/M (which in turn took
it over from mainframes and . . . was it PLP?)


Try doing:
type test.txt > test2.txt

It works.
It mayn't object, and one can send output to another file with
type, but it was never the standard way to do it. And I'm still
not sure (I'd need a plain DOS box to verify it) that you can use
type to send to an lpt port. Never mind a legal fiction network
resource. (Actually, there's a 98Se box at the office; that can
boot to DOS, and it has an lpt port. So if I can get the time I
could verify that at least. But there's no way I can test this
under XP).


Have you tried using the copy command?
Isn't there ANYONE out there with an XP box, a USB HP printer,
and a NIC, who can test this? It works fine for me on W2K, but
none of the XP boxes has an HP (or Postscript) USB printer
attached to it--or room to attach one at the office. All my USB
printers at home are Epsons; the two HPs are parallel-only.


--
Patricia M. Godfrey
priscamg@xxxxxxxx