The message is misleading, it supports the bidir mode, but you can't read
from the printer.  Someday I'll fix it.
    -- Lennart

Greg Troxel wrote:

>I just converted a machine to NetBSD 1.6.1-stable from FreeBSD, and
>was pleased to see this dmesg when I turned on my Epson Stylus Photo
>1200:
>
>  ulpt0 at uhub0 port 2 configuration 1 interface 0
>  ulpt0: EPSON USB Printer, rev 1.00/1.00, addr 2, iclass 7/1
>  ulpt0: using bi-directional mode
>
>escputil in theory supports reading ink level, status, and printer
>identification.  This didn't work under FreeBSD, so I excitedly typed
>
>  > escputil -u -r /dev/ulpt0 -i
>  Escputil version 4.2.1, Copyright (C) 2000-2001 Robert Krawitz
>  Escputil comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details type 'escputil -l'
>  This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it
>  under certain conditions; type 'escputil -l' for details.
>
>  Cannot read from /dev/ulpt0: Operation not supported by device
>
>So it seems the problem where read() is not implemented, discussed in
>
>  http://mail-index.netbsd.org/port-i386/2001/09/25/0011.html
>  http://mail-index.netbsd.org/current-users/2002/03/15/0009.html
>
>remains.  I didn't find any open PRs about this.
>
>Also, I've heard mumbling that ulpt support in NetBSD doesn't quite
>work (lockups needing power cycling of printer).  These PRs are still
>open:
>
>  http://www.netbsd.org/cgi-bin/query-pr-single.pl?number=13360
>  http://www.netbsd.org/cgi-bin/query-pr-single.pl?number=17948
>
>Any comments on the -stable and -current state of things?
>
>  
>