Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!execu!sequoia!rpp386!woody
From: woody@rpp386.cactus.org (Woodrow Baker)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript
Subject: Re: using parallel and serial ports
Summary: serial and paralell
Message-ID: <17544@rpp386.cactus.org>
Date: 3 Jan 90 16:08:05 GMT
References: <4386@amelia.nas.nasa.gov>
Organization: River Parishes Programming, Plano, TX
Lines: 38

In article <4386@amelia.nas.nasa.gov>, izen@amelia.nas.nasa.gov (Steven H. Izen) writes:
> I have a QMS PS-810 that I'd like to use in the following non-standard way:
> 
> Currently the printer is connected through its parallel port (switch setting
> 4 in the back) because that is significantly faster than the serial
> communications, especially when downloading images.  However, when connected
> by the parallel port, there seems to be no stdout file available.  What I would
> like to do is somehow either 1) redirect stdout to the 25 pin serial channel
> (9600 baud would be nice) or if that's not possible 2) open the 25 pin
> serial channel as a file object, in either case maintaining the parallel line
> as the stdin file.
> 
> TFM manual doesn't say anything more than "use switch 4 for parallel, and
> use switch position 1 for serial on the 25 pin channel."
> 
> Thanx in advance for any help.
> 
> Please respond by e-mail as I haven't the time to read this group regularly.
I have never been able to get e-mail to take from readnews, the deamon
always bounces it back.  

By examining the contents of userdict, $printerdict, statusdict and serverdict
one discovers the routines to handle the switches.  It turns out, that even
though it is not documented, the action associated with the paralell port
opening on th QMS-ps810 also opens the 9 pin serial channel at 9600 baud
as stdout.  All error messages go out that port.  I don't know why Adobe
didnot or does not document things like that in the suppliment, but the
way I found it was dumping the internal dictionaries under interactive
executive     mode.   /serverdict load {== ==} forall     and
/statusdict load {== ==} forall will dump these dictionaries.  The contents
are most enlightening.  Mucho undocumented operators are used, and are
available for use.  One can completely alter the actions of the switches
(just alter a copy of the switch processing array, and put it into the
current dictionary.  There are many other magical things hidden here, and some
of them are intensly useful.

Cheers
Woody