[HECnet] Printing to an LA75 using VMS queues and form definitions

[Gregg Levine]

On Tue, Mar 8, 2011 at 5:03 PM, Mark Wickens <mark at wickensonline.co.uk> wrote:
On 08/03/11 21:49, Gregg Levine wrote:

On Tue, Mar 8, 2011 at 4:43 PM, Mark Wickens<mark at wickensonline.co.uk>
  wrote:

On 08/03/11 21:33, Gregg Levine wrote:

On Tue, Mar 8, 2011 at 4:27 PM, Mark Wickens<mark at wickensonline.co.uk>
  wrote:

Hi guys,

I have printing working to my LA75+ dot matrix printer via a spooled
VMS
queue which communicates via LAT with the printer attached to a
DECserver
90L+. Everything is working fine except for two issues:

1. I'd like to be able to print with a form definition which leaves a
margin
at the top and bottom of the page. I tried this:

$ DEFINE/FORM LISTING 3

/WIDTH=132/PAGE=66/MARGIN=(TOP=6,BOTTOM=6)/STOCK=DEFAULT/NOWRAP/TRUNCATE
$ SET QUEUE/DEFAULT=FORM=LISTING LA75$PRINT_ALEPH$

I tried asking Hoff but I think he's sick of my 80's related questions,
his
response was entitled:

Classic printing best left to masochistic perfectionists
<http://labs.hoffmanlabs.com/node/766#comment-2424>
(http://labs.hoffmanlabs.com/node/766)

I think I'm almost there, but the printer appears to be ignoring the
bottom
margin - I get a top margin fine, and the listing is not exhibiting
'rolling' ie the content of the output is aligned correctly on each
page.

Anyone got any ideas what I can do? I want to be able to put listings
in
vertical binders, and that just doesn't work without both top and
bottom
margins being honoured.

Regards, Mark


Hello!
Mark I have several of those terminal servers here. How is yours
configured, and even wired to your system? (or systems?)

-----
Gregg C Levine gregg.drwho8 at gmail.com
"This signature fought the Time Wars, time and again."

Hi Greg,

It is wired to a 10MB router that has both a 10base2 (BNC) connector and
some 10baseT (RJ45) connectors via a thin wire BNC cable connected to
T-pieces with a 50 ohm terminator on each end. The 10MB router is
connected
to a Netgear gigabit router via CAT-5 and then out to the rest of the
world.

I configured the terminal server by connecting a terminal/pc terminal
emulator to port 1 via a DB9 to RJ45 cable. The management interface
allows
you to then specify the name of the decserver and the name of the port,
and
whether it is a printer/terminal port, speed, etc.

Once the port was configured I used the decserver/port name in the LAT
configuration on the VAX. I defined a virtual terminal pointing to that
decserver/port then pointed the printer queue to that.

The printer connects at 4800 baud to the specified printer port via a MMJ
to
MMJ cable that came with it.

Hope that sheds some light,

Mark.


Hello!
Oh yes. With one of mine I had gotten as far as the configuration
steps. But the connectivity issues were the big one. Do you recall who
makes this "10MB router that has both a 10base2 (BNC) connector and
some 10baseT (RJ45) connectors". I've been trying to find one with
limited success about the time the first one arrived here.

Strangely enough both it, and a VAX Station 3100 arrived here from a
fellow on the original Linux-VAX list. There was one of those in the
list, but that went to a different individual, it might have been you,
then again I can't recall.

That VAX Station 3100 is next to get working, perhaps I'll have the
time to do so, this summer or later.
-----
Gregg C Levine gregg.drwho8 at gmail.com
"This signature fought the Time Wars, time and again."

Greg,

This particular router is a 'no-name' white box. It was actually new when I
bought it off ebay, probably about 2 years ago. If you create an ebay search
for '(10base2, BNC) router' something will come up (you may need to say
'include description'). I have another one which has more ports, made my
Allied Telesis (always a good brand in my experience).

Yes - I think the boxes did go to me. The 90M is invaluable for serving
serial consoles out to TCP/IP telnet connections. The 90L+ does a fine job
of handling the printer, and doesn't require any configuration for firmware
downloading (it also boots within about 10 seconds).

Regards, Mark.


Hello!
Well it get stranger. Ebay did indeed put up something. It might be
the one we were discussing. It looked to be wearing a module made by
the gang behind the terminal server. The price that fellow wanted was
too much for my interests. Amazon had a few things, but one of them
came almost close. The hint was "almost", one end was indeed a COAX
port, but not BNC, it was wearing the classic F1 style.

I suspect that I might end up trolling the swap meets next....
-----
Gregg C Levine gregg.drwho8 at gmail.com
"This signature fought the Time Wars, time and again."