Configuring a Toshiba-p351 printer under ISC-386/ix?

[Marcus O. Ertle]

In article <105 at gizzmo.UUCP> mark at gizzmo.UUCP (mark hilliard) writes:
>In article <[430.1]comp.unix.i386;1 at point.UUCP> wek at point.UUCP (Bill Kuykendall) writes:
>>>The Toshiba then printed 132-columns of "X"'s and multiple page-ejects.
>>That one got me, too.  Your printer is set up to expect a CRLF combination
>>
>>                     cat "$file" 2>&1
>>
>ok there is a better way, just change the cat to lef so:
>
>>                     lef "$file" 2>&1
>
>Mark Hilliard

I'm not sure how Bill Kuykendall got ownership of this problem - hope 
you didn't get deluged with mail Bill - I had posted the original query.
To recap, my Toshiba p351 printer, connected as /dev/lp1, was not 
printing ascii output correctly.  It did not handle CRLF the way it 
should.  It generated line-feeds but no carriage returns.

Many thanks to all who have given advise on this.  I have tried nearly
all suggestions.  All I could understand anyway - how does: 
	stty opost onlcr 0<&1 
work?  I have also tried every combination of dip-switches on the
Toshiba - without success.  

As many pointed out, the Toshiba was expecting DOS (CRLF) output, and 
getting UNIX (LF).  I tried using utod :
	cat "$file" |utod 2>&1
or lef:
	lef "$file" 2>&1
which got me a little closer to good output - CRLF handled correctly - 
but a previously undetected problem cropped up.  The Toshiba did not 
handle tab-characters correctly - a tab caused the print-head to go to 
the right margin.

In desperation, I wrote my own version of a UNIX-to-DOS filter which 
handled NL correctly (\r\n) and replaced tab (\t) with column-number 
modulo 8.  I know this is arbitrary, but it works for UNIX, ascii files.
For VP/ix - will probably need to pass file unchanged.  

In any case, thanks for all the help netland - I've probably taken up
enough time on this subject.  Through your suggestions, I have learned
a little bit about how printing works under SysV.

For what its worth - my opinion only:  Despite some small problems, I 
have found ISC relatively friendly and easy to use.  I think when/if
man pages come out, that will help us novice/new-to-SysV users.  I
really like the install and sysadm menus - my other car is a VAX-with 
ULTRIX - which means wading through a lot to learn system 
administration.

- Marc Ertle
- NGDC