Done Configuring Serial Printer - DEC 3000 Model 700 / NetBSD V4.0 -Printer Works

["Micheal H. McCabe" <mhmccabe%alltel.net@localhost>]

on 12/7/08 19:32, Johnny Billquist at bqt%softjar.se@localhost wrote:


> That's easy. Just pretend you have an ASR33. That's a terminal with a
> paper tape reader/punch which worked over the same serial line as the
> terminal.

Well, since it's a DECmate I (in the VT-278 package), the CPU and terminal
electronics are all on the same board.  The serial line works great when I
set the machine up as a terminal. There's some magic involved in getting the
"inner pdp-8" to accept the serial port as a load device.  There's also the
format question:  RIM loader, BIN loader, etc. I figure that out eventually
(I hope.)

But, back to the topic at hand...

I finally got the serial printer working.  I'm not sure exactly which change
made the difference, but I'll summerise what I've done here.  Some other
poor soul might be as confused as I am, someday.

First, my printcap entry was too complicated for the task at hand.  The
filter was a sticking point, even after I corrected the pathname I wasn't
getting any output from the filter.  Solution:  remove the filter entirely.
Since much of the formatting is actually done by LPR, I don't really
need it for this printer.  Line ends are handled just fine with a CR
followed by a line feed. No stair-stepping that I saw when piping raw text
directly to /dev/ttyB0.

Second, instead of turning my entries OFF in the ttys file, I had commented
out the line entirely.  I'm not sure what effect this had on LPR, but
everything started working after I uncommented the lines and explicitly
turned them OFF.

Third, I had edited the rc.conf file using vi during a telnet session from a
Windows PC using Hyperterm.  Changes made to rc.conf where I explicitly set
lpd=ON were lost when I saved the file.  I discovered this when I returned
to the file and saw that several lines were corrupt.  Using a legitimate
terminal to re-edit the files made everything work much better.

So, here is the working set of configuration files that has my printer up
and running.  I appreciate all the help that the folks on this list have
provided.  Special thanks to Johnny Billquist for his knowledge of every DEC
related.

---- Begin boring recitation of system configuration files ----

#    $NetBSD: rc.conf,v 1.96 2000/10/14 17:01:29 wiz Exp $
#
# see rc.conf(5) for more information.
#
# Use program=YES to enable program, NO to disable it. program_flags are
# passed to the program on the command line.
#

# Load the defaults in from /etc/defaults/rc.conf (if it's readable).
# These can be overridden below.
#
if [ -r /etc/defaults/rc.conf ]; then
    . /etc/defaults/rc.conf
fi

# If this is not set to YES, the system will drop into single-user mode.
#
rc_configured=YES

# Add local overrides below
#
dhclient=YES
hostname="paleo.my.network"
lpd=YES
PRINTER=lp

#    $NetBSD: printcap,v 1.13 2006/10/08 15:28:49 elad Exp $
#    from: @(#)printcap    8.1 (Berkeley) 6/9/93

lp|local line printer:\
    :sh:lp=/dev/ttyB0:br#9600:ff=\f:pl=66:pw=80:sf=true:sh=true\
    :sd=/var/spool/lpd:lf=/var/log/lpd-errs:

#
#    $NetBSD: ttys,v 1.10 2004/06/20 21:30:26 christos Exp $
#
# name    getty                type    status        comments

# In normal operation, getty on 'console' pseudo-device is disabled, and is
# enabled for the correct 'real' device (e.g. one of the serial ports).

# console pseudo-device
console    "/usr/libexec/getty std.9600"    vt100 on secure

# Workstation console (framebuffer) ttys
ttyE0    "/usr/libexec/getty std.9600"    vt100 off secure
ttyE1    "/usr/libexec/getty std.9600"    vt100 off secure

# DEC 3000 Z8530 ("scc") serial ports
ttyB0    "/usr/libexec/getty std.9600"    vt100 off secure local
ttyB1    "/usr/libexec/getty std.9600"    vt100 off secure local

# AlphaStation NS16550 ("com") serial ports
ttyC0    "/usr/libexec/getty std.9600"    unknown off secure
ttyC1    "/usr/libexec/getty std.9600"    unknown off secure

Thanks again for all the help!

-- 
Micheal H. McCabe
mhmccabe%alltel.net@localhost