Can I print to any serial printer?

[okto]

I tried to print to my Oki ML320 via Comms Link (actually Dynasys DT LINK), but it didn’t work. I did use a null modem, I realize the Dynasys (and likely the Comms Link) is wired DCE.

Is it only possible to print to the Psion printer?

[amenjet]

Did you use the comms link to send serial data?

[Daren]

I have not had any luck printing to a serial printer either, so I’d be interested to hear any success - I tried a null modem cable too as well as direct to comms link using a db25-db9 adapter, I set the Psion and printer comms settings the same but so far no luck. The printer is a Brother QL720NW label printer.

[Zenerdiode]

Are you guys getting any kind of gobbledygook from the printer at all? Double-check your baud rates, 8N1 etc. and be prepared to swap TXD and RXD.

@okto already seems to have a handle on it, recognising the Psion and CL act as DCE, but the manual is a bit woolly as it also describes the cable as having a null-modem ‘built in’. You may have inadvertently introduced a double-double cross - if you know what I mean.

[Martin]

Hi..

We had a serial printer in the 80's but I'm afraid I don't remember the settings (and dip switch settings) but I think on the XP we had to reset the Comms Protocol Setting from PSION to NONE.

I know this doesn't answer your question but for others watching... In the days of the QL I remember a surveying student set up a serial 'comms' so we could save the field data to a Microdrive and with a bit of SuperBasic add some quotes and stuff to get it into Abacus the spreadsheet.

Later of course on the PC we used COPY COM1 LPT1 to pass the prints to a parallel printer. With the advent of Windows Boris Cornet was adding a print option to Psi2Win (Build 304) he didn’t quite get it finalised before he passed so if you use it you need to wait a few seconds for it to ‘time out'. Lostgallifreyan a member here put a File Relay option in ORG-Link_V2 which is excellent for getting text from the Organiser into a Windows Notepad and from there you can do what you want with it.

Sincerely
Martin

[amenjet]

Hi..

We had a serial printer in the 80's but I'm afraid I don't remember the settings (and dip switch settings) but I think on the XP we had to reset the Comms Protocol Setting from PSION to NONE.

You definitely want to set the protool to NONE, yes.

It should be possible, with some work, to create a 'Psion printer' replica using the printer software, an interface PCB and a printer mechanism. Then you'd have the features of the Psion printer but with new components and no need to find a Psion printer.

Andrew

[Lostgallifreyan]

Lostgallifreyan a member here put a File Relay option in ORG-Link_V2 which is excellent for getting text from the Organiser into a Windows Notepad and from there you can do what you want with it.

Thanks. Indeed, it looked like the only thing to do, given the bang per buck that results.

Protocol=NONE, as a few people said, is mandatory, but is it not possible to tell a printer to interpret each byte as a literal, including some of the control bytes? If so, then so long as the printer gets printable bytes, it will print them. As with the decision to add a file relay to ORG-Link, the simplest methods are often the best, because they are versatile, and it's harder to find things that can't do them.

If a printer MUST couch the printables in some kind of packet, then its documentation might give you the info needed to structure a serial packet to hold the stuff you want printed. The main reason to do this would be some kind of reliability check so a printer knows it's getting valid data, but there ought to be a minimal method, else the amount of data can be stupidly high for small payloads. There may even be a standard printer method, just as there was for sending serial data to modems.

EDIT: The old parallel ports only had 8 bits, so any formatting bytes had to go before or after raw printables. I doubt that using a serial port changed it much, except to handle things like software flow control bytes.