Hi Karen,
That sure is a strange one with the Write statements not working.
It sounds like it is quickly reaching the point where buying another printer
is in order. (from a cost effectiveness point of view)
However, you might want to look at the printer cable. While I would think
that all modern cables are bi-directional (all pins enabled), it certainly
is possible that "cheap" ones are not.
Try swapping out your cable (or some other cable that you know works). And
make sure the printer driver has bi-directional support activated.
I don't know if this has anything to do with the issue... but... straws, eh?
Brent Skean
Current Solutions
-----Original Message-----
From: tellef <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: INTERNET:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Wednesday, September 19, 2001 7:31 AM
Subject: Re: Revisiting printing from DOS - an explanation
>
>> This may be a dumb question but are the WRITE commands preceded by
>>OUTPUT PRINTER in the application files? You don't really say. I have
>2.11
>>apps here running under Win 9.x that use WRITE commands to a LaserJet and
>>they work just fine.
>
>>Bernie
>
>Yes all their programs use OUTPUT PRINTER. We tried it from the r>
>prompt also. Doing OUTPUT PRINTER, WRITE "HELLO", NEW, OUTPUT SCREEN
>only shoots out a blank. (I'm sorry I didn't mention in my previous email
>that I WAS putting a "new" after every command; several people thought that
>might be my problem.) Doing this to my brand new LaserJet works fine.
>It appears to be a difference with her "very cheap" (her words) Lexmark
>ink jet.
>
>Dennis McGrath suggested doing OUT LPT1 and seeing if that helps. I
>confess
>I didn't try that -- will do so and let you know if it makes a difference.
>
>
>>Another good test is to do a DIR > LPT1
>>at a DOS prompt and see if that works.
>>Again, you'd have to send a page feed if
>>the DIR isn't long enough.
>
>>Scott
>
>That was one of the first things I tried. When it worked fine, that's when
>I realized that it wasn't the printer not recognizing dos at all.
>
>
>>If memory servers me correctly I think that I discovered
>>the same thing years ago using a DOS version of R:BASE.
>>But I think if you use SHOW rather thanWRITE it sends the
>>information to the printer. SHOW should work correctly. I
>>remember attempting to send control characters to the
>>printer and WRITE would not do it but by stroing the
>>character strings in a variable and then SHOW VAR
>>(SOMETHING) it would work.
>
>>Bob Powell
>
>Now there's an idea I haven't tried either. Just for giggles I think
>I'll have her try SHOW VAR instead. If it does work (and changing
>OUTPUT PRINTER to OUTPUT LPT1 doesn't) then it would be a HUGE job to
>fix their programs because as I mentioned every report is done with
>WRITE-ing variables that would have to be replaced with showing variables!
>
>
>
>Karen
>
>
>
