Re: [PLUG] Parallel port with Debian 12

[Walt Mankowski via plug <plug@lists.phillylinux.org>]

On Wed, Jan 15, 2025 at 08:27:53AM -0500, N. Albert via plug wrote:
> On 1/14/2025 7:57 AM, Rich Freeman wrote:
> > On Mon, Jan 13, 2025 at 8:55 PM N. Albert via plug
> > <plug@lists.phillylinux.org> wrote:
> > > On 1/13/2025 8:36 PM, Michael Lazin via plug wrote:
> > > 
> > > >    I don't think you can write to the parallel port with bash
> > > > directly.
> > > Hmm, from some research I did initially, it seemed like it should be
> > > possible
> > So, it has been eons since I've used this sort of hardware on linux,
> > but I suspect it depends on your printer.  Really old printers
> > probably would just accept ascii text they receive and print it,
> > unless preceded by escape codes and such.  More modern printers may
> > not still have this sort of legacy compatibility and may expect
> > everything to be encoded in some sort of command language.  Granted,
> > if the printer actually HAS a parallel port it is probably for legacy
> > purposes, but if it is just really old it might just be from the days
> > when everything used Windows but USB wasn't ubiquitous.  Bottom line
> > is that it might depend.  If you've been able to print this way on
> > this particular printer in the past though I'd say it seems likely to
> > work.  I'm also not sure if CUPS can create a device node and then
> > just translate via the printer driver.
> 
> Yup, that's how I'm printing to it under Windows. I'm not using any drivers
> either. I did look at the programmer's manual for it at the time (it's a
> Star Micronics TSP600 Thermal Printer) and that indicated I should be able
> to write raw text directly to the printer (there are also some special codes
> that can be used, which I don't need). When I send a job using smbclient, I
> can use raw text / newlines to format it the way I want (not that there is
> much formatting control). All my jobs are a single line at a time anyways.

Out of curiosity, what kind of paper are you printing to? This approach
wouldn't work well on most modern printers (like my ancient HP
laserjet) because they print a page at a time.

Are you printing to a roll of paper of the kind that's normally used
for printing receipts?

Walt
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