Re: Done Configuring Serial Printer - DEC 3000 Model 700 / NetBSD V4.0 -Printer Works

[Johnny Billquist <bqt%softjar.se@localhost>]

Micheal H. McCabe wrote:
> on 12/7/08 19:32, Johnny Billquist at bqt%softjar.se@localhost wrote:
>
>
> > That's easy. Just pretend you have an ASR33. That's a terminal with a
> > paper tape reader/punch which worked over the same serial line as the
> > terminal.
>
> Well, since it's a DECmate I (in the VT-278 package), the CPU and terminal
> electronics are all on the same board.  The serial line works great when I
> set the machine up as a terminal. There's some magic involved in getting the
> "inner pdp-8" to accept the serial port as a load device.  There's also the
> format question:  RIM loader, BIN loader, etc. I figure that out eventually
> (I hope.)

Several questions, really. However, if you are talking about booting 
from paper tape, you either have to write your own boot loader, or you 
need to hook the paper tape reader (or simulator) to the console port 
(assuming the console port can be accessed, and that you have a boot 
prom that supports paper tape from an ASR33.
If you want to access the paper tape from the booted OS, then you need a 
device driver for the ASR33, and then the usual procedure applies. Hook 
to console port, and so on... :-)
But if you want to talk more about this, we can do it privately.

> But, back to the topic at hand...
>
> I finally got the serial printer working.  I'm not sure exactly which change
> made the difference, but I'll summerise what I've done here.  Some other
> poor soul might be as confused as I am, someday.

Glad to hear it works.

> First, my printcap entry was too complicated for the task at hand.  The
> filter was a sticking point, even after I corrected the pathname I wasn't
> getting any output from the filter.  Solution:  remove the filter entirely.
> Since much of the formatting is actually done by LPR, I don't really
> need it for this printer.  Line ends are handled just fine with a CR
> followed by a line feed. No stair-stepping that I saw when piping raw text
> directly to /dev/ttyB0.

Good. I think I told you to skip the filter anyway. Filters can be fun, 
but they are tricky. I have one on my machines, which invoke 
magicfilter, so that I can print just about any format, but that is 
something you play with once the basic setup is working.
And the basic despooler will make newlines correct anyway, as you noted.

> Second, instead of turning my entries OFF in the ttys file, I had commented
> out the line entirely.  I'm not sure what effect this had on LPR, but
> everything started working after I uncommented the lines and explicitly
> turned them OFF.

Weird. That should be just the same deal. Did you kick init after 
changing /etc/ttys? You know that init don't automatically reload the 
/etc/ttys file just because you change it? You need to send a SIGHUP to 
init for the file to be reloaded.

> Third, I had edited the rc.conf file using vi during a telnet session from a
> Windows PC using Hyperterm.  Changes made to rc.conf where I explicitly set
> lpd=ON were lost when I saved the file.  I discovered this when I returned
> to the file and saw that several lines were corrupt.  Using a legitimate
> terminal to re-edit the files made everything work much better.

Hmm. That was potentially bad, but if you observed the lpd daemon 
running I'm not sure that would make a difference.

But maybe this also played a part.
Anyway, seems like you had several items that could have worked in 
combination to make your life difficult.
As you now have it running, I hope you agree that it's not a very tricky 
system to play with, and it works pretty good.

> So, here is the working set of configuration files that has my printer up
> and running.  I appreciate all the help that the folks on this list have
> provided.  Special thanks to Johnny Billquist for his knowledge of every DEC
> related.

You're welcome, even if I didn't help that much. :-)

        Johnny

> ---- Begin boring recitation of system configuration files ----
>
> #    $NetBSD: rc.conf,v 1.96 2000/10/14 17:01:29 wiz Exp $
> #
> # see rc.conf(5) for more information.
> #
> # Use program=YES to enable program, NO to disable it. program_flags are
> # passed to the program on the command line.
> #
>
> # Load the defaults in from /etc/defaults/rc.conf (if it's readable).
> # These can be overridden below.
> #
> if [ -r /etc/defaults/rc.conf ]; then
>     . /etc/defaults/rc.conf
> fi
>
> # If this is not set to YES, the system will drop into single-user mode.
> #
> rc_configured=YES
>
> # Add local overrides below
> #
> dhclient=YES
> hostname="paleo.my.network"
> lpd=YES
> PRINTER=lp
>
> #    $NetBSD: printcap,v 1.13 2006/10/08 15:28:49 elad Exp $
> #    from: @(#)printcap    8.1 (Berkeley) 6/9/93
>
> lp|local line printer:\
>     :sh:lp=/dev/ttyB0:br#9600:ff=\f:pl=66:pw=80:sf=true:sh=true\
>     :sd=/var/spool/lpd:lf=/var/log/lpd-errs:
>
> #
> #    $NetBSD: ttys,v 1.10 2004/06/20 21:30:26 christos Exp $
> #
> # name    getty                type    status        comments
>
> # In normal operation, getty on 'console' pseudo-device is disabled, and is
> # enabled for the correct 'real' device (e.g. one of the serial ports).
>
> # console pseudo-device
> console    "/usr/libexec/getty std.9600"    vt100 on secure
>
> # Workstation console (framebuffer) ttys
> ttyE0    "/usr/libexec/getty std.9600"    vt100 off secure
> ttyE1    "/usr/libexec/getty std.9600"    vt100 off secure
>
> # DEC 3000 Z8530 ("scc") serial ports
> ttyB0    "/usr/libexec/getty std.9600"    vt100 off secure local
> ttyB1    "/usr/libexec/getty std.9600"    vt100 off secure local
>
> # AlphaStation NS16550 ("com") serial ports
> ttyC0    "/usr/libexec/getty std.9600"    unknown off secure
> ttyC1    "/usr/libexec/getty std.9600"    unknown off secure
>
> Thanks again for all the help!