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From: izumi@violet.berkeley.edu (Izumi Ohzawa)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript
Subject: Re: simple question on LW NT time out
Message-ID: <1990Mar24.201154.27408@agate.berkeley.edu>
Date: 24 Mar 90 20:11:54 GMT
References: <482@lee.SEAS.UCLA.EDU>
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In article <482@lee.SEAS.UCLA.EDU> jsin@island.seas.ucla.edu (John Sin) writes:
>
>a paper.  Is this done by the error handler?  I know that someone
>downloaded an error handler routine to this particular printer for that
>purpose (to print it out, and not echo back to the server), but I'd have 
>thought that default error handler will be restored once the printer is 
>powercycled.
>
The error handler should not persist if the printer is power-cycled.
I wonder if there is any 'cron' job down-loading the error handler
to the printer periodically.

Here's a suggestion to people who are using the error handler.
Stop using it, and connect a CRT terminal to LW instead, and save trees.

We use a standerd CRT terminal to see any error messages coming out
of LaserWriter.  You can just branch off pin-2 and pin-7 of the
LaserWriter serial connection to the CRT terminal, and adjust baud
rate etc appropriately.  Then you have an instant 'status monitor'
for the printer.

You can enhance the redability/usefullness by letting the spooler
send additional information before sending each PostScript job.
It can send something like:

(------\n) print
(Date: Mar 24,  Time: 12:33, Print job from user: uselogin\n) print flush
Control-D

Then, if any error occurs, error messages are printed right after
the above line so that users will know what happned.
I find that, unless I want to track stack info, simply displaying
the error messages as above is all I want.

Not only this saves trees, it will make good use out of old CRT
terminals.

Izumi Ohzawa, izumi@violet.berkeley.edu