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From: toms@fcs260c2.ncifcrf.gov (Tom Schneider)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript
Subject: Re: Help zapping a printer
Message-ID: <1854@fcs280s.ncifcrf.gov>
Date: 27 Aug 90 00:58:06 GMT
References: <4241@optilink.UUCP> <9448@scorn.sco.COM> <1505@chinacat.Unicom.COM>
Sender: news@ncifcrf.gov
Organization: NCI Supercomputer Facility, Frederick, MD
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In article <1505@chinacat.Unicom.COM> woody@chinacat.Unicom.COM
(Woody Baker @ Eagle Signal) writes:
>In article <9448@scorn.sco.COM>, bobs (Bob Stayton, Yoyodoc) writes:
>> 
>> This bit of Postscript code was posted some time ago.  It
>> reboots a LaserWriter, sending it thru its startup sequence,
>> including generating the test page.  Just send this to
>> the printer as a regular print job.
>> =========cut here===================
>> %!
>> %reboots LaserWriters
>> serverdict begin
>> 0 % or whatever your password is
>> exitserver
>> systemdict begin
>> quit

I tried this, and found that it did reboot my printer.  Then I sent a
junk file to the printer and tried to reboot again.  Nothing happened.
I sent a few control-D's and that didn't help either.  You see, the problem
is that on occasion I send a text file directly to the printer by accident.
It, of course, fills up the PostScript stack with junk that causes a
lot of errors (I suppose, I don't have a link back from the printer
to my Sun workstation.)  I'm running Unix by the way, not DOS on a PC.

On other occasions I'll send a huge file that the printer can't handle,
and it dies silently.  (The NeWS window system never dies like this, and
always shows me that the PostScript code is in fact good code!)

It seems that I may not be getting the control-D's across; anybody know
how to do this in UNIX (sending a file with a control-D in it didn't work).
It also seems that the reboot program given above simply never gets
executed when the printer is fowled up.

Thanks for your suggestions so far, but now what?

  Tom Schneider
  National Cancer Institute
  Laboratory of Mathematical Biology
  Frederick, Maryland  21702-1201
  toms@ncifcrf.gov