Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!mcsun!ukc!sys-uea!cmp8163
From: cmp8163@sys.uea.ac.uk (P.N.J. Vlietstra)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer
Subject: Printer online checking - how ?
Keywords: printer
Message-ID: <1290@sys.uea.ac.uk>
Date: 27 Jun 91 11:23:16 GMT
Distribution: comp
Organization: UEA, Norwich, UK
Lines: 16

I know this may sound like a pathetic question, but I never had to do this
before:
how do you check whether a printer (on the parallel port) is actually
switched on (or on-line) ? If you open PRT:, you get a timeout after so many
seconds (including the requestor "printer trouble..."), but I can't
use that in my time-critical application. I need to know within a second
whether the printer is on/off. Is there a way of LEGALLY checking
bits in ciaa, ciab ? If so, how exactly do you go about doing that ?
What happens if you open the parallel.device directly, will that reveal
any info (in some peculiar structure perhaps) on printer status ?
The libs&devs manual is a bit unclear on this point.

Peter Vlietstra
University of East Anglia
Norwich
United Kingdom.