Re: help!

["Young For Life Products, Ltd" contact@xxxxxxxx]

Jordan, thank you very much. Much appreciated. I will take your advice. Live
and learn. Windows-only printers never occurred to me; Bill Gates' tentacles
are everywhere. I must say it would have been nice of eCS technical support
to tell me this first, rather than wasting my time for lo, these many days.

Charles

----- Original Message -----
From: J. R. Fox 
To: 
Sent: Saturday, September 29, 2001 12:44 AM
Subject: Re: help!


> "Young For Life Products, Ltd" wrote:
>
> > I have switched to eCS and installed XY4, and am happily back at XPL,
BUT I
> > can't get my computer to print to my Canon BJC 5100 or BJ 2000. From XY4
or
> > from the Java editor bundled with eCS. I know some of you will think
this is
> > off-list, but I hope you will consider my thought that it's actually
very
> > relevant, because with the new Windows which will not support DOS
> > applications, one of the only choices in the future for we who wish to
> > continue using XY3 or XY4 is going to be eCS.
> >
> > I have tried the omni printer file eCS includes, and have emailed eCS
tech
> > support several times. My brother has tried a bunch of things, none of
which
> > worked, including trying to use the driver that came with the printer
(which
> > is obviously intended for Windows only). If I hook up an old dot matrix
> > printer, fine. But not any of the Canons. My brother says its because
the
> > Canons don't have internal CPU's and are dependent upon the computer's
CPU,
> > and eCS does not support them. eCS tech support made a bunch of lame
> > recommendations (make sure the port is enabled in the BIOS - duh), and
now
> > have gone silent on me (yes, I stayed nice and courteous and humble and
> > didn't say any of the pithy things I really wanted to say).
> >
> > Can anyone help? Am I missing something, or is this really a problem
that
> > someone knows about?
>
> I have not installed ECS yet -- waiting on some h/w upgrades, to take
place
> sometime before the end of the year -- and have zero experience with Canon
> printers. With those disclaimers in place, I'll try to do what I can to
> assist. Yes, there are brain-dead "Win-printers," which require being
driven by
> Windows services in order to function.  (This has been discussed here
before,
> in another context.) In my opinion, such printers are to be avoided at
all
> cost, for a variety of reasons. If your model happens to be one of those,
you
> will indeed find yourself up the 'crick on this one. A possible -- though
not
> foolproof -- tip-off can be whether or not the printer can be successfully
> driven from real DOS. I'm not aware of any Win-printers that can be.)
>
> If your printer is _not_ one of these, there are certain suggestions. If
we
> were talking about a _system-wide_ driver (such as Netscape would use,
*not* Xy,
> which pre-emptively uses its own printer drivers), sometimes an
installation of
> one of these will fail to "take." In that case, you would need to
uninstall and
> re-install the driver.
>
> If you have exhausted the limited "official" ECS support, there are other
venues
> where you might obtain other _unofficial_ assistance, often from very
> knowledgeable people. Yahoo Groups (formerly EGROUPS) has one or more
forums
> devoted to ECS. There are a couple forums on Compuserve devoted to OS/2
stuff.
> I believe they are web-accessible to anyone, no CS subscription required.
The
> CS fora are not nearly what they once were, but can still be valuable.
There is
> a dedicated ECS newsgroup, and various OS/2 newsgroups, though the latter
have
> traditionally been plagued by a poor signal to noise ratio and flame wars.
Here
> in SoCal, we have the SCOUG (S. Calif. OS/2 Users Group) Help List -- not
too
> unlike the nature of *this* List -- and I don't think you need to be a
member to
> join -- but I can check on that. Finally, you might want to periodically
take a
> look at things like the SCOUG online newsletter, the VOICE newsletter, and
the
> OS/2 e-zine, all of which regularly publish good 'How To' articles, and
maintain
> extensive archives of prior issues. I can dig out and post the relevant
URLs
> for you, if you wish.
>
> An analogy I often fall back on these days is that if one is going to
"fly" any
> flavor of Linux or OS/2, this puts one in the position of aviators circa
> Lindbergh's day: if something breaks on your trip, you damn well better be
able
> to fix it yourself. (Of course, a necessary illusion is that help from
Redmund
> for Win users is only slightly more available: better be prepared to break
open
> a large piggybank, and wait a long time on Hold.) Fortunately in the case
of
> OS/2, unlike in the Lindbergh scenario, some skilled mechanics are often
> available _for free_, just a few mouseclicks away.
>
> Jordan