Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!xanth!galaxia!attdso!shuxd!att!ihlpf!bamford
From: bamford@ihlpf.ATT.COM (Harold E. Bamford)
Newsgroups: unix-pc.general
Subject: Re: UNIX-PX Printer Setup
Summary: /usr/bin/sprint is the screen dump program!
Keywords: UNIX-PC Printer 7300 3B1 sprint
Message-ID: <8015@ihlpf.ATT.COM>
Date: 21 Mar 89 15:29:24 GMT
References: <932@mtfmi.att.com> <719@kosman.UUCP> <1435@mtunb.ATT.COM> <202@abacab.UUCP> <721@kosman.UUCP>
Reply-To: bamford@ihlpf.UUCP (Harold E. Bamford)
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories - Naperville, Illinois
Lines: 30
Sender:

In article <721@kosman.UUCP> kevin@kosman.UUCP (Root) talks about his
confusion re: the screen dump program:

>Continuing <1435@mtunb.ATT.COM> jcm@mtunb.UUCP (was-John McMillan) writes:
>>
>>The KERNEL only sends the bits out (ref: 'wd' ioctl): there is a
>>screendump program that is responible for translating it to the printer
>>-- and therein's your problem -- at least the software one!
>
>Are you sure?  There's no program by that name (or any other unknown progams
>with names ending in 'dump') on my system.  Also, I can't figure out how
>to look up a 'wd' ioctl.  I do see ioctl(wd,WIOCREAD,&pixmap) but that
>doesn't tell me much.
>I can see how to do this if I'm writing the package, but the data flow
>for the Shift-Print screen dump still looks like a kernel thing to me.
>
>Does anyone have better information?

I have better information.  When you request a screen dump, the program
"sprint" is invoked which grabs a bit-image of the screen and formats it
for the printer.  I have written a version of sprint that formats for an
HP ThinkJet (native mode) so I know whereof I speak.

Which is not to say that it couldn't have been done better...

If there is sufficient interest, I will post the sprint.c program which
is easily adapted to other printers.  In fact, the major complication in
this one is that it rotates the picture 90 degrees for readability.

-- Harold Bamford