ITEM: BR7033L

GL file won't plot through native serial port

ENV: AIX 3.2.5, Model 320H

DESC: customer is trying to plot a GL file to an HP750 plotter.
If he connects the plotter via a jetdirect attachment, it works.
If he connects via the native serial port, the plotter just
flashes for a few seconds as it receives data, but never plots.
He has also tried catting the file to /dev/lp0 on the native
serial port, but gets the same results.

ACT: I discussed this with Robert and found that he was able to
print files through piojetd even before changing piobe to cat.
He can print the files from the Cadum through the jetdirect attached
queue.  This does go through a Graphigs driver first.  The files
he gets from SDRC do not go through Graphigs first.

The SDRC files will print either through the jetdirect attached
queue, or directly serial connected queue, or by catting the file
to /dev/lp0.  The Cadum created file will only print through the
jetdirect attached queue.

Customer has found the if he sets the plotter into HPGL mode, he
can get the printer to print, but it shows up upside down and only
half the page.  In HPGL/2 mode, it prints correctly through the
jetdirect attached queue, but doesn't print at all on the serial
attached queue.  The busy light does flash, and it does seem to receive
data, but doesn't plot anything and just goes back to a READY state.

I had him insert the "in; " into the beginning of the file, but it
did not seem to help.  I had him create another file with
"od -xc \ > \" and he will fax this to me.
He will also fax the first page of a similar dump of a file that
does print.

ACT: I typed in the file as shown by the od -xc, and am able to print
it without a problem.  Not sure now why he can't do as well.  I am
going to an IBM 4029 printer.

ACT: Since he can print the file from SDRC, I don't believe this is
a flow control issue.  We tried adding

esc % - 1 B LF

onto the beginning of the problem file.  This is the escape sequence
that I found was at the beginning of the SDRC file.  This still did
not help.

I then had him put a terminal on the end of the cable instead of the
plotter.  We had to set the terminal to auto-wrap lines, since we are
not adding CR to LF at the opsys level.  We confirmed that the file
was sent in entirety and without modification with this method.
He then sent it through the queue defined on the lp device, and 
checking the terminal we found it sent only the file, without any
init strings.

Since he added the jetdirect and the lp queues as Plotter, I don't see
that we are going to change the data differently on these queues.
Not to mention the fact that the customer has modified piojetd to use
cat instead of piobe.  For further confirmation, I had him start
an

iptrace -a -p 9100 -d \ \

We then printed the file through the jetdirect queue.  After formatting
the iptrace we found that the file was sent byte for byte as is, with
no additions or modifications.

ACT: customer has sent the same fax of the "od -xc \" to a
rep at HP.  They will be examining the file and confirming that
it should be able to print. 

ACT: With the aide of HP, customer was able to discover that the file
would plot normally if he added

PG;

to the end of the file.  This is a command that signifies the end of
the plot, and causes the plotter to actually print what has been
received thus far.




Support Line: GL file won't plot through native serial port ITEM: BR7033L

Dated: December 1996 Category: N/A

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