dot matrix POS parallel printer problems

fluis · Post by **fluis** » Thu Mar 06, 2008 12:14 pm

I have a application that writes to the LPT1 directly,
in wine there is a lot of missing characters in the printout,
in the console printing to /dev/lp0 works ok.
I'm using puppy linux.

Any help welcome.

Thank you

fluis · Post by **fluis** » Sat Mar 08, 2008 9:05 am

I changed the application to write one char at a time until the buffer is empty and now it works. ( WriteFile(FHandle,PCHAR(mys)^,1,e,nil) )

Dan Kegel · Post by **Dan Kegel** » Sat Mar 08, 2008 10:06 am

On Sat, Mar 8, 2008 at 6:05 AM, fluis <[email protected]> wrote:

I changed the application to write one char at a time until the buffer is empty and now it works. ( WriteFile(FHandle,PCHAR(mys)^,1,e,nil) )

That's interesting! Can you write a little test program
that demonstrates the problem, and send us the source
and executable? Maybe we can fix Wine.
- Dan

Dan Kegel · Post by **Dan Kegel** » Sat Mar 08, 2008 10:10 am

On Sat, Mar 8, 2008 at 7:06 AM, Dan Kegel <[email protected]> wrote:

On Sat, Mar 8, 2008 at 6:05 AM, fluis <[email protected]> wrote:
I changed the application to write one char at a time until the buffer is empty and now it works. ( WriteFile(FHandle,PCHAR(mys)^,1,e,nil) )
That's interesting! Can you write a little test program
that demonstrates the problem, and send us the source
and executable? Maybe we can fix Wine.

I created
http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=11917
as a placeholder for this. Which version of Wine are you using, btw,
and what language are you writing in (Delphi? Which version?)
- Dan

fluis · Post by **fluis** » Sat Mar 08, 2008 1:27 pm

Dan Kegel wrote: ...
That's interesting! Can you write a little test program
that demonstrates the problem, and send us the source
and executable? Maybe we can fix Wine.
- Dan

Code: Select all

program timp; (* Delphi 7 *)
{$APPTYPE CONSOLE}
uses
  SysUtils,windows;
(* Star SP200 Buffer off sw 6 on, Epson TM-U210PD buffer off sw 1-2 on*)
var
  devname : string = 'LPT1';
  ps : array [0..41] of char = '0123456789012345678901234567890123456789'#10#13;
  nl : array [0..3] of char = #10#13#10#13;
  i,i2,FHandle : integer;
  e : DWORD;
begin
  FHandle := CreateFile(PChar(devname), GENERIC_WRITE, 0, nil, OPEN_EXISTING,FILE_ATTRIBUTE_NORMAL, 0 );
  try
    for i := 0 to 49 do
      WriteFile(FHandle,ps[0],42,e,nil); (* xp ok *)

    for i := 0 to 3 do WriteFile(FHandle,nl[i],1,e,nil);

    for i := 0 to 49 do
      for i2 := 0 to 41 do
        WriteFile(FHandle,ps[i2],1,e,nil); (* xp&wine ok *)
  finally
    CloseHandle(FHandle);
  end;
end.

exe: http://ajuda.variavel.com/timp.zip

Wine version 0.9.28 kernel 2.6.21, large printer buffers can hide the problem.

Best regards

Luis Forra
---

Dan Kegel · Post by **Dan Kegel** » Sat Mar 08, 2008 1:44 pm

On Sat, Mar 8, 2008 at 10:27 AM, fluis <[email protected]> wrote:

Wine version 0.9.28 kernel 2.6.21, large printer buffers can hide the problem.

Thanks for the test app!

What do you mean "large printer buffers"? Is this something physically
on the printer? i.e. do some printers work because they have large buffers?
Which ones?

That version of Wine is very old. Can you try again with recent wine
(latest is wine-0.9.57) just to be sure?

fluis · Post by **fluis** » Sat Mar 08, 2008 2:16 pm

Dan Kegel wrote: What do you mean "large printer buffers"? Is this something physically
on the printer? i.e. do some printers work because they have large buffers?
Which ones?

Is the hardware buffer in the printer, a larger buffer than the job may not show problems.
In a POS printing a invoice is a small job 1K-2K, a older printer with a small buffer (Star SP200 1K buffer)
will see problems a newer printer with a large buffer (epson TM-U220 4K)
seems to work must of the time, so to test I disable the hardware buffer,
i tried do change the bios settings (normal, epp etc) and the parport options (irq=none, dma=none etc) to no avail,
and the problem shows even in a vmware guest.

Dan Kegel wrote: That version of Wine is very old. Can you try again with recent wine
(latest is wine-0.9.57) just to be sure?

Yes, I will try.

Luis Forra
---

fluis · Post by **fluis** » Sat Mar 08, 2008 4:17 pm

With ubuntu 7.10 and wine 0.9.57 there isn't any problem.

Thank you for your help

Luis Forra
---

Martin Gregorie · Post by **Martin Gregorie** » Thu Jun 30, 2011 6:12 am

On Thu, 2011-06-30 at 02:13 -0500, raymondfranco wrote:

I'm thinking for replacing my current printer that I use with my POS
systems
MODERATOR: spam link deleted.
. What do you think is the
best brand out there? Thanks.

What do you currently have?

I like Epsons for one main reason: all Epson dot-matrix (and many/most
inkjets) from the MX-80 onward are upward compatible, IOW all the ones
I've tried understand the Epson ESC/P command set and all provide
useable minimum capabilities if you tell your software its dealing with
an MX-80 (9-pin 80/132 character dot-matrix command set).

This certainly works for the parallel port MX-80, LQ-400 and LQ-550 dot
matrix printers as well as for the Stylus 850C inkjet. Epson printers
are well-supported by CUPS too.

Martin

Post by **dimesio** » Thu Jun 30, 2011 7:34 am

Martin Gregorie wrote:What do you currently have?

The post you replied to was obvious spam. I've deleted it from the forum. Please do not reply to such posts.

Post by **dimesio** » Tue Oct 11, 2011 9:32 pm

Locking thread; I had to delete 3 spam posts from it.