SCO serial printing to HP Laser Jet

[sgolab]

Hello Everyone.

On serial print jobs sent to an HP Laserjet printer (distance 300ft), the printer prints out what looks like an hp escape sequence followed by raw text. These are supposed to be invoices so formatting matters here.

The serial connection runs at 38400

Does any one have any ideas where I can start?
Thanks in advance!

 

[jlasman]

What interface script is being used?

What escape sequence are you seeing?

On the surface, it sounds as though the printer
has been set to print escape sequences rather than
interpret them. This is done with <esc>Y which I seem
to recall is also a terminal escape sequence for some
terminal type. <esc>Z resets the <esc>Y

What happens if you add &quot;-o raw&quot; to the lp command?

Jim Asman

 

[edfair]

Just to verify that the serial is OK, how about moving the printer to the computer. At 300 feet the signal has degraded enough that it might not be decoding correctly. Ed Fair
unixstuff@juno.com
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.

 

[Megabitman]

WOW! 38400 at 300 feet is a sure fire method of losing all sorts of characters. If I remember correctly, I believe that generally 100 feet is quoted as a reliable distance at 9600 baud so any additional speed and distance is a bonus. If you are using &quot;transparent&quot; printing through a terminal (or terminal emulation program), then most certainly the escape sequences will be intercepted by the terminal. Additionally, I recall on some of the earlier versions of Openserver and SCO UNIX that the interface scripts did not work properly with the hp sequences, so you may have to recreate your own. One final thought is that if you did not set up the terminfo type, many of the arguments passed through the script will not be called properly. Give a bit more information and we might be able to lend a better hand.

 

[sgolab]

Thanks for all the suggestions. I will try them out and get back with more information.

Again, thanks!