Drew Northup wrote:
> Wow, I guess I've been gone for a while!!!
>
> I like the idea of just doing a raw port driver for
> the lpr device to enable parallel ports in the guest.
> I have just one comment......most (newer) printer
> drivers that would be supported in this way require
> bidirectional parallel port use anyway, which could
> lead to some problems. I know this to be true for all
> of the HP's since the 500 & 500c (inkjets, the lasers
> still took postscript & others last time I knew) and
> for all of the Cannon & BJC inkjets..... to name a
> few.
>
You really know how to ruin someones' day :-(
I have abandoned the BIOS hack until someone can clarify that I'm doing
something wrong in the build and put me right.
Playing with BOCHS is going OK. I am just starting to put some
handshaking emulation in. With strategically placed bx_printf's I can
see what is coming out of win95. The problem is that if you are correct
(grrrr) I won't be able to simulate what should go back to it unless
I make the emulation printer specific. If this really is the case, then
I am going to get a bit stuck without some serious documentation and I
would suggest that we target and emulate a colour Postscript printer to
get the maximum compatability for printers attached to the host
(thankyou ghostscript!). Maybe IBM would pass me the docs for their
comms protocols. They seem to have the got the religion if their
contribution to GNU/Linux is anything to go by...
Harrrumpf!
>
> Also, and I don't know how pertinent this may be....,
> don't the bidirectional parallel ports use both sets
> of pins (the + bias as well as the - bias) on the
> printer cable? I don't know how well this is
> supported by the current abstraction drivers in linux
> (I'm sure that it is...., it is just more a matter of
> how). I'll look into that if you want me too
> (something that I can actually manage in between
> classes :-\ ). As for the stated eventual porting to
> the breain dead windows platform.... the above will be
> easy... I'll see if I can dig up the info for that (I
> think that I have a chunk of public domain code around
> for that.....). Until next time.........
>
This shouldn't matter - the guest driver will realise that it only has a
plain ol' parallel port and so "shouldn't" try any funny business with
it.
Thanks for the offer of help - I'll get the basic handshaking going and
see what happens with some test files. If it goes a wonderfull shape of
pear, I'll definitely be giving you a call :-)
Bryan.
