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From: steve@violet.berkeley.edu (Steve Goldfield)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Macintosh and Printers
Message-ID: <15098@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 6 Oct 88 23:24:05 GMT
Sender: usenet@agate.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: steve@violet.berkeley.edu (Steve Goldfield)
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Lines: 60

I haven't been reading this group, and maybe what follows has
already been discussed. If someone from Apple reads this, I'd
greatly appreciate a response, because I am extremely disgusted
at the way the Macintosh system was designed in respect to
user control of printers.

The Background

I have a label program which prints mailing labels from my
database. I've used essentially the same program on many
printers and from various versions of dBASE and now McMax
on my Mac II. I've found that the most general way to write
such a program to print on continuous labels is to set the
form length to the length of the label and eject after each
label. I have a LaserWriter but purchased an LQ specifically
to print continuous labels.

The Problem

When I got my Imagewriter LQ, I diligently read the manual
and found the control code to reset the form length (it wasn't
easy to find since it only appears on a fold-out card in the
back and has a typically cryptic explanation of its critical
parameters). So I programmed those (and other control codes
to control the quality of printing) into my McMax program, and
to my horror found that nothing I had sent was having any
effect except to print strange characters on the printer.

After frantically calling several sources, including Apple
Customer Relations, I've been informed that the Macintosh
system prevents me as a user from controlling the printer,
that the printer can only be controlled through its driver,
and that to do what I want I'd have to write a custom driver,
which is an extremely demanding project.

I managed to rewrite my label program to get around the
form-length problem (though I still can't control print
quality through software commands). But I would still like
to know why Apple chose to implement the Macintosh system
in such a way as to prevent the user from making optimal
use of her/his equipment. Why couldn't the existing driver
have been written in such a way as to pass user-generated
control codes on unchanged to the printer? And a more minimal
request: why couldn't the manual at least spell out clearly that
Macintosh users can't use these control codes.

I quote from the LQ manual, page 199: "Macintosh note: You can
command the printer through programs on a Macintosh, but not
through typing a direct command, even though some Macintosh
keyboards have an Escape key (Esc)." This sure implies to me
that I *can* use escape sequences to control my printer.
But reality, as described above, is different.

So, in summary, if this limitation is an intentional part of the
Macintosh design, I ask Apple (or anyone else who wants to
comment), why was such a design chosen for the system?
If it wasn't intentional, then what does Apple propose to do
about it?

Steve Goldfield