Buying Used Printer Cartridges

[cr1901]

The PRINT command is very limited, particularly if you're sending a lot of non-plain-ASCII stuff, such as HP PCL. I can't recommend it to anyone. (Another vestige of CP/M left in DOS)

I thought that having to use the "page eject" button of the printer was the original complaint.

It wasn't a complaint, more of an observation that I didn't expect. I WAS bitching about the fact that printers in general are uncooperative pieces of hardware that make the user's life miserable.

Something I wanted to some months ago, before I thought I could fix the printer, was to create an mTCP application which sends PCL commands via Raw JetDirect (port 9100) to a network printer when DOS I/O is redirected to a parallel port... however, since as of a few months ago, mTCP doesn't support being called from a TSR or device driver, I had to scrap that.

I'm under the impression that DOS only supported sending ASCII characters to a printer and pictures are therefore impossible unless an application-specific driver was used to print graphics, or a file containing PCL commands was piped to PRN. I'm not sure what GRAPHICS.COM does, as I've never used it.

Also, doesn't Windows 1.0 and above support PCL using a driver?

 

[Chuck(G)]

I've got old DOS CAD programs (pre-Windows) that have drivers for dot-matrix printers of various makes and the first LaserJets. DOS itself doesn't know anything about graphics or any special command languages, which can be a problem if all you've got is a Postscript printer.

Most word processing packages, dating back to CP/M WordStar had their own printer interface as well.

One of the more useful DOS-based PCL packages that I've used was Vern Buerg's LJBOOK, which produced a landscape 2-page side-by-side text listing.

Has anyone come up with a CUPS-compatible DOS network interface? Could be that it's too complex for a simple DOS machine.

 

[MikeS]

The PRINT command is very limited, particularly if you're sending a lot of non-plain-ASCII stuff, such as HP PCL. I can't recommend it to anyone. (Another vestige of CP/M left in DOS)

Oh? I print a fair bit of stuff containing PCL codes and don't recall ever having a problem.

I thought that having to use the "page eject" button of the printer was the original complaint.

That was my point: if you TYPE or COPY a file to the printer you have to manually eject, but if you PRINT it then it will eject automatically.

And of course one of the main advantages of PRINT, especially if you're printing a large file or files, is that it prints in the background and you can continue to use the system, whereas COPY ties up the computer until it finishes.

To each his own of course, but when I have a print job that takes two hours to print even on a fast laser I personally find PRINT very useful.

 

[MikeS]

It wasn't a complaint, more of an observation that I didn't expect. I WAS bitching about the fact that printers in general are uncooperative pieces of hardware that make the user's life miserable.

As opposed to writing it out with pen or pencil or typing by hand? I don't know what you're doing or what your issues are, but my clients and I print 100s (1000s on some days) of pages every day with nary a problem.

Something I wanted to some months ago, before I thought I could fix the printer, was to create an mTCP application which sends PCL commands via Raw JetDirect (port 9100) to a network printer when DOS I/O is redirected to a parallel port...

What kind of DOS I/O would contain or need PCL commands?

I'm under the impression that DOS only supported sending ASCII characters to a printer and pictures are therefore impossible unless an application-specific driver was used to print graphics, or a file containing PCL commands was piped to PRN.

Some misconceptions, that may explain your frustration. COPY (and PRINT AFAIK) will just send whatever is in the file to the printer; if the file contains picture or any type of information that the printer understands (which may require telling the printer what to expect) then the printer will print it.

I'm not sure what GRAPHICS.COM does, as I've never used it.

Lets you display a print file on the screen; e.g a print file containing PCL commands that the display obviously knows nothing about).