BBS: Inland Empire Archive
Date: 07-06-92 (14:59) Number: 168
From: TOM KIEHL Refer#: NONE
To: JIM TANNER Recvd: NO
Subj: Lprint and printers Conf: (2) Quik_Bas
Jim,
RE: can't get CheckPrn% function to return TRUE... Read
other messages of possible solutions for your not getting a
valid 144 Looking back thru some of my QB code, I found
that I needed to do this with the Regs.ax...
Status% = (Regs.ax \256) AND 255
^^^^^^^
This takes care of the negative-number return value.
Secondly, the printer "busy" line could be triggered by the printer which
would give you a return value of 16. Since busy is not
really an error state and will clear itself in time, I make
a simple delay loop of a second or so and try again. Of
course if too much time passes (iterations of the loop)
there could be a problem and it would be a good idea to
bail out at that point.
Sorry for the missing "AND 255". I had typed it from memory
(where I deal with AH and AL individually in C and ASM adn
don't need to divide by 256).
If you want to distinguish each "error", here's a list:
Bit 7 (128 decimal) Printer NOT busy if ON Bit 6 (64 dec) Printer
acknowledge Bit 5 (32 dec) Out of paper if ON Bit 4
(16 dec) Printer Selected (On-Line) if ON Bit 3 (8
dec) I/O error if ON Bits 1 & 2 Not used
Bit 0 (1 dec) Printer timed out if ON
So if status% = 144 ... (128 ORed with 16) printer is ready
to roll. IF Status% = 128 all is fine but printer buffer
may be full. IF Status% AND 32 then out of paper IF
Status% AND 8 then I/O error IF Status% AND 1 then
Printer timed out I usually ignore Bit 6.
That should get you going.
Tom Kiehl
~~
* SLMR 2.1a * Old programmers never die, they just lose their byte.
--- TosScan 1.00
* Origin: Carrie's Living Room - Largo, Florida USA (1:3603/150)
