what are the current dos compatible HP printers?

F

Fenrir Enterprises

one with a parallel port.
Thanks

The only new inkjet printer on the market that still has a parallel
port is the C88. I believe a few of the more expensive laser printers
also have one, but not many of them.

I do not know if the C88 is DOS compatible.

--

http://www.FenrirOnline.com

Computer services, custom metal etching,
arts, crafts, and much more.
 
R

rwap

This is becoming more and more of a problem - especially in industry
that is still running equipment from 5 + years ago - there is a lot of
software which still relies on DOS and although programs like Printfil
can help (if your program will work within a DOS window under Windows)
there is still quite a bit of equipment which does not run Windows and
relies on a DOS compatible printer connected to a parallel or serial
port.

A lot of printers (even if they have a parallel port) are not DOS
compatible as they cannot handle plain text sent to them directly.

An easy way to check if a printer is DOS compatible (presuming that it
is connected to LPT1 is to open a DOS window and enter the command DIR
C:>LPT1.

Rich Mellor
www.rwapsoftware.co.uk
 
J

Joel Kolstad

rwap said:
This is becoming more and more of a problem - especially in industry
that is still running equipment from 5 + years ago

True, although there are certain printers such as the HP LaserJet IV that'll
probably be easily purchased & serviced for at least, say, another decade...
kind of like the VW bug of printers...

For the more "well behaved" programs that didn't directly access the parallel
port hardware, you can just "capture" a parallel port and redirect it to a
network printer (...that speaks "straight ASCII," -- these are still fairly
common in mid- to high-end laser printers). Finally, I believe I've already
seen a product out there that connects to the parallel port of a PC and then
connects to any networked printer; that should work in almost all cases.
 
R

Richard Steinfeld

Joel said:
True, although there are certain printers such as the HP LaserJet IV that'll
probably be easily purchased & serviced for at least, say, another decade...
kind of like the VW bug of printers...

For the more "well behaved" programs that didn't directly access the parallel
port hardware, you can just "capture" a parallel port and redirect it to a
network printer (...that speaks "straight ASCII," -- these are still fairly
common in mid- to high-end laser printers). Finally, I believe I've already
seen a product out there that connects to the parallel port of a PC and then
connects to any networked printer; that should work in almost all cases.
FWIW: I bought a conversion cable that takes standard USB input and
plugs into an older printer's parallel port. I bought it from an on-line
seller; the price was very low. It comes with software. The thing is
adressed as "LPT2." I don't recall if interrupts or ports are
selectable. When I tested it, it worked like a charm: very transparent.

The setup is a Windows ME system and an Okidata 12i printer, with the
Oki driver.

Richard
 
W

William R. Walsh

Hi!
The only new inkjet printer on the market that still has a parallel
port is the C88. I believe a few of the more expensive laser printers
also have one, but not many of them.

I do not know if the C88 is DOS compatible.

If there's any way a laser printer would do, Samsung sells a few that have
parallel ports and can "speak" PCL. I see no reason why these wouldn't work
for your application.

I would find it hard to go wrong with a secondhand DeskJet 500 or 600 series
machine. All of the 500 series and (I think) nearly all the 600 series are
capable of running under DOS. They're also built well enough that as long as
you keep them clean (including the paper rollers) that they should last very
close to forever.

William
 
A

Andrew Rossmann

[This followup was posted to comp.periphs.printers and a copy was sent
to the cited author.]

"jd" said:
one with a parallel port.

In some cases, if you are using old software that writes to LPT1, you
can get away with a USB printer. Just share the printer, then connect to
your own share (I don't think that works with Win95/98/ME):
NET USE LPT1 \\yourcomputer\printershare

If necessary, you may need to enable your Server service if it's been
turned off.

You can test it by doing this:
COPY CON LPT1
Type in a few lines
of text to try.
Then type CTRL-L (form-feed), then CTRL-Z (end of file)

If the printer can understand plain text and maybe HPGL/PCL or Epson
codes, and the program doesn't try to write directly to the parallel
port hardware, it should work.

I think many HP's still support HPGL and PCL. I have an HP 2410
multifunction, and have printed to it using this.
 
O

Otto Sykora

Network, under DOS?

Remamber: those apps, where DOS is essential, are often real time
applications in industry, operating some machines, moving equipment ,
industrial robots etc. It has to be real time. Windows of present day
version explicitly forbids any real time access to external world,
also to a serial or pararel ports.

Therefore in most industrial countries is use of windows for
controlling some industrial equipment simply forbidden by law.

Therefore connecting a 'winprinter' to windows computer and running
then DOS app from the dosbox is in serious applications no
alternative.

I have been using some HP Lasert printer abt 2 years ago , the name
was something HP 6... and this one could understand plain ascii
commands on a paralell port.
Have asked if some of the new HP printers with paralkell port would do
that too, was given an answer NO, those are just 'winprinters' and
will not understand direct communication of any sort appart with the
api windows. And for Linux, yes also here HP distributes some drivers
to satisfy those customers.
 
O

Otto Sykora

again: USB under DOS? did you ever tried the DOS driver for USB? Do
you know how to manage the settings for it etc?
 
O

Otto Sykora

a dos program will try to write to paralell port, this will be locked
up by windows of presen versions.

networking, USB, all kind of adaptors can not work this way under DOS.
 
R

rwap

And, as you rightly say, not all DOS programs can be run inside a
Windows DOS box. Plus there are still plenty of people out there who
use non-Windows and even non-DOS based computers (such as PLCs
(programmable logic controllers) and Sinclair machines, which are still
very popular).

Apart from industry going back to dot matrix printers, it appears that
only the second hand market will do as it is hard to find a new printer
with a parallel port on it, let alone one which does not rely on a
windows printer driver to convert the plain text.

The only long term solution which I can see, would be for someone to
sell a small box which runs Windows and can be networked in order to
install the correct printer driver. It would read the data output from
a computer running a DOS program (or similar) via its parallel port,
convert it using the Windows printer driver and output it to its own
printer. Not real time I admit, but that is not so important for
printing.

Samsung do offer one or two printers at the moment, but trying to find
out which models support plain text is like pulling teeth. Epson no
longer produce any suitable models (IIRC) and HP are going the same
way. Also the move from parallel ports has rendered the majority of
printers useless with this equipment - there are USB -> parallel
convertors, but not parallel->usb convertors alas and it is the
hardware which will have the parallel port and no usb connection.

Hmm interesting, but no real solutions at the moment, other than use
second hand printers (if you can find them). I have bought a couple of
second hand ones off eBay, but often they have blocked heads, or do not
produce the quality of print output as they are generally quite a few
years old now - this problem has been around for at least 4 years

Rich
www.rwapservices.co.uk
 
A

Andrew Rossmann

a dos program will try to write to paralell port, this will be locked
up by windows of presen versions.

networking, USB, all kind of adaptors can not work this way under DOS.

It depends on if pure DOS is needed, or if the program will work as a
DOS shell under Windows.

Also, most DOS programs probably use BIOS or DOS function calls for
printing, and those are typically redirected by Windows. Printers have
typically been slow enough that writing directly to the port hardware
rarely offered any improvement.
 
O

Otto Sykora

I have no clue how industry will slve the problem in next times. For
specific application in the aircraft indusry, at least one company
sells still a cable labeling system using the FX5 from epson. I have
no idea how they do it, if they had so big stock of the printers or
had them made recently by epson themselves.
Anyway this is an example how big the problem is. The cable labeling
system as it was designed was one day certified by big effort in
almost all countries probably. To certify some new system will take
other 5 to 10 years probably, by that time there is no USB avaiable on
any hardware or software....
Try to use P-touch or similar for labeling cables on an airliner, on
the next inspection you will have your surprise.

In some application what I have seen recently to run some real time
system, was a small 'in between' server running winCE and this again
communicating with usual XP system. The CE can run real time , thus is
only way of doing it. It needs big technical effort and lot of new
software.

People who have some industrial plants operated by DOS software, are
not allowed to run it in some kind of DOS box window under Windows. So
they will not be happy with any adaptors of USB kind etc.
They will need printers runnig from DOS natively, since there are no
propper drivers or hardware which could be operated from DOS to run a
winprinter AFAIK, unless you built it yourself.

The whole computer industry is just running after Microsoft and
forgets, that industry plants need an operating time of more then 10
years often , thus not be able to cope with all kind of gaming fun
produced for home and office user.
 
Z

zakezuke

Otto said:
People who have some industrial plants operated by DOS software, are
not allowed to run it in some kind of DOS box window under Windows. So
they will not be happy with any adaptors of USB kind etc.
They will need printers runnig from DOS natively, since there are no
propper drivers or hardware which could be operated from DOS to run a
winprinter AFAIK, unless you built it yourself.

The whole computer industry is just running after Microsoft and
forgets, that industry plants need an operating time of more then 10
years often , thus not be able to cope with all kind of gaming fun
produced for home and office user.

Network, HP II emulation or postscript, or heck Epson. I imagine one
could get tricky and have a print server who's job in life is to accept
various inputs in a varity of ways, and I imagine if one wanted to they
could design a parelell port/ serial port adapter to network adapter
for the PC side of things, who's purpose in life is to accept printer
input and toss it elsewhere. This is in the unlikely event that your
dos app requires all the conventional memory possible and won't work
with networking enabled.
 
O

Otto Sykora

Network, HP II emulation or postscript, or heck Epson. I imagine one
could get tricky and have a print server who's job in life is to
accept
various inputs in a varity of ways, and I imagine if one wanted to
they
could design a parelell port/ serial port adapter to network adapter
for the PC side of things, who's purpose in life is to accept printer
input and toss it elsewhere. <

One day, I will probably start to design some box doing the job for
people who have to use it. Something could be based on small linux
embeded and take the outputs from some real time devices like under
DOS and convert it to the present day fast but unreliable systems.


This is in the unlikely event that your
dos app requires all the conventional memory possible and won't work
with networking enabled.<

well , networking under DOS, yes this was something one day, but on a
present day TCP/IP Lan with DOS? Yes, the russian DOS (PTS-DOS) had
allways its LOTLAN coming with it, but this is nothing for the TCP/IP
lan we have now.

The DOS apps which ultimatively need to run in native DOS, have to do
it because this is real time use. Nothing to do with memory usage etc.
Example: I did work on building equipment with an industrial robot arm
as one part of it. The arm had a power of abt 6 tons and able to move
very fast. Safety signals, when the arm would touch something had to
be passed immediately to the control computer to give it a stop if
needed. It was possible under DOS or later under w95 and w98 with
special real time drivers being loaded before the windows, so the
serial and paralell ports were handeld in real time. Present day
windows systems explicitely forbid any such application. Dozens of
miliseconds pass until the signal on some port can be processed and
appropriate response sent. By that time , my robot arm might well
destroy the biulding it is placed in...

There are many more examples like driving complex test equipment etc.
 
Z

zakezuke

Otto said:
dos app requires all the conventional memory possible and won't work
with networking enabled.<

well , networking under DOS, yes this was something one day, but on a
present day TCP/IP Lan with DOS? Yes, the russian DOS (PTS-DOS) had
allways its LOTLAN coming with it, but this is nothing for the TCP/IP
lan we have now.

Ummm... my information is a tad vague but "Microsoft LAN Manager" does
cover TCP/IP if you so like. I typicaly see it used for netBEUI but
TCP/IP works as well.

Here we are
ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/BusSys/Clients/LANMAN/

More than adquate for a printer.
The DOS apps which ultimatively need to run in native DOS, have to do
it because this is real time use. Nothing to do with memory usage etc.
Example: I did work on building equipment with an industrial robot arm
as one part of it. The arm had a power of abt 6 tons and able to move
very fast. Safety signals, when the arm would touch something had to
be passed immediately to the control computer to give it a stop if
needed. It was possible under DOS or later under w95 and w98 with
special real time drivers being loaded before the windows, so the
serial and paralell ports were handeld in real time. Present day
windows systems explicitely forbid any such application. Dozens of
miliseconds pass until the signal on some port can be processed and
appropriate response sent. By that time , my robot arm might well
destroy the biulding it is placed in...

There are many more examples like driving complex test equipment etc.

While I'm "sure" there are DOS programs which don't require the
maximium amount of conventional memory available, which depend on low
level access to devices, there are others which require every last
kilobyte available. But I'm strongly suspecting that this system with
a robotic arm didn't really need to have a printer attached to it. I'm
a little confused as to your point because you can still get Dos if you
really need it, where what I commented on refered to instances where
10+ years of support was needed. Ethernet does qualify. Even thin
coax can be adapted with moderate ease to 10baseT.
 
R

rwap

The only thing is that this makes too many presumptions (along with the
printer industry):

1) That the DOS application can be amended to work with a network port
- most would output direct to LPT1 and I don't know (sorry if I sound
thick), but may not be able to run inside a Windows DOS Box so how do
you re-direct the parallel port to capture it?

2) Real time applications are often running on Programmable Logic
Controllers which do not run DOS but a specific logic control software
which has its own network capabilities (such as ControlNet) - here the
length of time a program takes to run (and even loop times) can be
critical - we are talking of nanoseconds making a difference, as it
may need to monitor up to 255 inputs from various items of hardware
(motors, pecs etc) and set outputs which may change within a couple of
nanoseconds. Printers are critical as often the PLC is housed
somewhere inaccessible where you cannot get to the screen !!

3) Believe it or not but some control systems do not have much memory
(eg. 64K) and so you cannot afford to add extra drivers - you are lucky
if you can send a simple stream of plain text and carriage returns -
the beauty of epsons - need a lot less control codes than PCL language

4) That a regulating authority (BAA and CAA are good examples) will
allow you to network the control equipment (even to just a printer) -
they like to know that the system is completely secure and that the
only way a computer could be connected to it is via the plug on the
front panel (and by someone who has physically gone through security
checks). In most cases you have to get new equipment approved by them
- including printers to ensure that the font used matches their
criteria for easy recognition in all conditions.

Unfortunately, all this is easily forgotten by those who think that a
computer means a Windows controlled desktop or laptop.

Rich Mellor
www.internetbusinessangels.com
 
Z

zakezuke

rwap said:
The only thing is that this makes too many presumptions (along with the
printer industry):

1) That the DOS application can be amended to work with a network port
- most would output direct to LPT1 and I don't know (sorry if I sound
thick), but may not be able to run inside a Windows DOS Box so how do
you re-direct the parallel port to capture it?

I believe it's
"net use lpt1 \\printserver\printer /persistent:yes"

This is straight dos with the Lan Manager. Seen it used on XT
generation systems without issue. I don't remember the exact command
line syntax because the handy dandy manager has spiffy text driven pull
down menus that allow you to plop in all the approperate fields.

Granted, I have not seen it run on anything below a "Turbo XT", I think
the most lame machine i've seen it used on was a 8086 Xerox with some
odd ball 25 pin display port.

To be 100% clear, port redirection is handled by the Microsoft Lan
Manager software.
2) Real time applications are often running on Programmable Logic
Controllers which do not run DOS but a specific logic control software
which has its own network capabilities (such as ControlNet) - here the
length of time a program takes to run (and even loop times) can be
critical - we are talking of nanoseconds making a difference, as it
may need to monitor up to 255 inputs from various items of hardware
(motors, pecs etc) and set outputs which may change within a couple of
nanoseconds. Printers are critical as often the PLC is housed
somewhere inaccessible where you cannot get to the screen !!

Fair enough. I was talking MS-DOS. But I imagine freeing up cpu
cycles by printing via the network interface might have a negative
impact, and an additional tsr and driver might consume a couple.
3) Believe it or not but some control systems do not have much memory
(eg. 64K) and so you cannot afford to add extra drivers - you are lucky
if you can send a simple stream of plain text and carriage returns -
the beauty of epsons - need a lot less control codes than PCL language

The protocal for the HP laserjet, which is included in emulation, can
handle ascii just fine. I don't know about current lasers, but i've
seen quite a few with Epson emulation as well. Still many lasers that
can accept a text dump with nothing more than <CR><LF> and <Page
break>, and heck you can even define only <CR> or just throw text at
it.

As for memory, well I said in the first place that in cases where all
the conventional memory is being used it might be, in such a case I'm
willing to believe
4) That a regulating authority (BAA and CAA are good examples) will
allow you to network the control equipment (even to just a printer) -
they like to know that the system is completely secure and that the
only way a computer could be connected to it is via the plug on the
front panel (and by someone who has physically gone through security
checks). In most cases you have to get new equipment approved by them
- including printers to ensure that the font used matches their
criteria for easy recognition in all conditions.

To be honest, I can't answer this, but I'm sure the Microsoft Lan
Manager is well documented enough to be listed or not listed. I am
talking early DOS, I'd estimate the time period where Novell and
Lantastic were the norm. As for the font, courier 10cpi good enough, I
believe that's still installed on most lasers by default which can turn
out a page with only plain text input. But there are a slew of onboard
printer fonts which are likely to still exist. Whether these are
acceptable for the application or not, I can't say. Odds courier pica
and elite are among those.

But this is an issue you'll run into when ever you replace a printer.
The cabling and protocal don't affect the font.
Unfortunately, all this is easily forgotten by those who think that a
computer means a Windows controlled desktop or laptop.

That's the thing... I was not forgetting this. I was so not forgetting
this. Lanmanager for dos is simply that... it's for dos. It's as dos
as you can get. If you need to print on a dos based machine, and can't
get a USB printer, network was supported pretty well. So long as you
have enough in the way of conventional memory, doesn't cause any
critical speed hangups, and doesn't conflict with anything, it's a
mighty fine solution to a world that has abandoned ye old parallel
port. There are some tricks one can peform to boost one's conventional
memory, there was an old utility I remember that was perfectly happy to
ditch color support and get you 704k, and good old QEMM. But for
dedicated control systems I would agree you want to monkey as little as
possible.

Now if we were talking about a dos app under a window, you can also
employ the net use command to redirect output from lpt to a network
printer, where that network printer can be the local one (i.e.
127.0.0.1). But if windows is NOT an option... Lan manager for dos
very well could be.

But the alternative would be a dongle which would accept printer data
and pass it along to a network printer If it did it would cover most
of the requirements which you are addressing. If you are "trully"
interested in the subject of getting a machine with only 64k to print
to a network printer... http://www.embeddedethernet.com/
The Systor Vest AS' CS8900a ethernet control has been used in other
situations to interface some pretty specalized hardware to ethernet
devices. To be honest I've only heard of it, here we are
http://tfe.c64.org/
Web server running on a C64 with only 64K of memory.
 
J

Joel Kolstad

Hi Rich,

So how realistic would it be in your industry to use a box that attaches to
the parallel port of a PC on one end and the Ethernet port of a regular old
print server on the other? (And you just connect the Ethernet port with a 6'
cable, not through your central LAN -- no security concerns there.) This kind
of box could readily be bulit.

What kind of printers does your old software expect to talk to anyway?
 

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