On Fri, 12 Sep 1997, Joey Hess wrote: > Nicola Bernardelli wrote: > > 1) what about sending output TO A PRINTER which is NOT ON A PARALLEL > > PORT (lpt1, lpt2, ...) but is instead on a serial line? (Maybe I just > > need to write software which sends output to its stdout instead of > > stdprn, and that output is merely redirected to a com port... maybe > > such multiuser environments have typical and by now "traditional" > > solutions to my question... that's why I said I lack the basics.) > > I think you need 2 lines. Assumming you want your software to be able to > direct some output to the printer and some output to the serial port, as it > wishes without human intervention to flip a switch, you need a separate line > for each. > > Also, while it's possible to have a device that prints out what comes to it > on a serial line, a PC's printer port works quite differenlty than it's > serial port, (you can't just plug a printer up to it), and so it will be > more economical to use a standard printer.
But I never heard of PC's with 8 or 16 LPTs, while I hear of multi serial IO cards with that number of ports. > > If yes, would the OS menage the distinction between the two devices > > or should _my_application_ (or some wrapper) be aware of the hardware > > each session runs on and eventually take care of sending special > > characters to say "this goes to the display, this goes to the > > printer" > > I've never heard of anything that did this. If you actually manage to find a > serial terminal + printer combo that is switchable from terminal to printer > mode via some escape sequence, then yes, linux could send the sigals. But I > think that's unlikly. > > or should I just have two distinct cables run from the Linux > > box to the place where the dumb terminal and the printer are? > > probably. > > > > 1) What serial devices allow longer cables than RS232 without use > > > of modems (say 10-100-200 meters)? > > > 2) Are there multi port cards of that kind which run well with > > > Debian? Any brandname + model? > > > 3) What if the text dumb terminals connected to a Linux Box also need > > > a printer each (or almost any of them)? Is it possible that > > > data is sent to the printer and terminal via the same line? > > > Brandname + model? > > I'll bet you're setting up a point of sale system. Bingo. I don't feel like doing it so much, but I should _hope_ to instead. > If I were you, I would set up an ethernet network, (I wouldn't like so much to have that possibly pretty high number of ethernet points, I wouldn't like to be called once in a while and have to go looking for bad connectors and so on... maybe some CPU-intensive task deserves another complete powerful Debian box, maybe even more in future, but using ethernet just to have terminal+printer...) > with a linux server, and POS systems that were 286 > or 8088 machines with printers attached. Then you would set up software for > the POS systems, to let them function as terminals, and/or output what data > they receive to their printers. This fixes your cable length problem, you > only run one cable, and the price is probably not much larger (unless you > get them for free, dumb terminals cost more than you would expect). What is a POS system? What software runs on it? What does such a PC need to boot at startup? What ethernet cards are suitable for a 8088 or 80286? (And - ignoring noise from the fan and need to boot some software - will the people for which I will be building the application find good-looking one-year-warranty such outdated machines? And, last, I will most probably be stuck at 80x25... ok, I shall anyway _not_ be making assumptions on that point...). Nicola Bernardelli <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Please use <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> for messages from any kind of robot, such as mailing lists. From that address no autoresponse messages will return even when I'm not at home. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] .