Lprint and printers

 BBS: Inland Empire Archive
Date: 07-03-92 (22:06)             Number: 2172
From: STEVE HALKO                  Refer#: NONE
  To: JIM TANNER                    Recvd: NO  
Subj: Lprint and printers            Conf: (2) Quik_Bas

JT>    I worked your routine into a Function as shown below.  I use a true
JT>blue Epson printer.  I can't get this to return TRUE when the
JT>Printer is online and ready.  I use LPT1 as my port. Can you
JT>tell me what I've done wrong.?
JT>'=================================

JT>FUNCTION CheckPrn% (Port)
JT>DIM Regs as RegType

JT>Regs.ax = &H200
JT>Regs.dx = Port

JT>CALL INTERRUPT(&H17, Regs, Regs)

JT>Status% = Regs.ax \ 256

JT>IF Status% = 144 THEN
JT>    CheckPrn% = TRUE
JT>ELSE
JT>    CheckPrn% = FALSE
JT>END IF
JT>END FUNCTION

  Could be one of two things Jim:

   1.  I didn't see any definitions for TRUE or FALSE in your code.

   2.  On some printers, you need to ignore the NOT BUSY flag and the
   ACK flag.  So before you test Status%, you need to turn bit 7 on, and
   turn bit 6 off:

       Status% = (Regs.ax \ 256) OR 128   'Turn bit 7 on
       Status% = Status% AND 191          'Turn bit 6 off
       IF Status% = 144 THEN
         etc.

 * SLMR 2.1a * If yogurt goes bad, how can you tell?

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