Re: Printer and Zip drive don't work together.

Tim Waugh (tim@cyberelk.demon.co.uk)
Thu, 20 May 1999 19:18:29 +0100 (GMT)


On Thu, 20 May 1999, Matthew Vanecek wrote:

> Not sure what happened. When I used 2.1.x series, the parport code
> worked great. I was printing and writing to my zip at the same time,
> and was in heaven. That was on a different, older machine, of course,
> but would that make a major difference? It *shouldn't*, in my mind.

It obviously _shouldn't_ make a difference. Different hardware could
excercise different code paths though.

Not only that, but all parallel port hardware is different in some way.
:-(

> I've come to the end of my know-how on this one. I don't know how to
> trace what's happening when the job get's sent to the print queue, and
> from thence to the printer via the Zip drive.

The Zip drive is 'invisible' when it's not being used. To all intents and
purposes, an idle (but powered) Zip drive may as well not be there, if
it's working properly.

Here's what I'd like you to do:

1. Have all the parport/ppa/lp stuff as modules.
2. Fresh boot, load the parport, parport_pc, and lp modules, and check
that printing works when the Zip drive isn't there.
3. Then plug the Zip drive in, and the printer into it, and see if
printing works. If not, it pretty much has to be a hardware problem.
4. With the Zip drive still in, load the ppa module. Find out if printing
works. If it did before, and doesn't now, it's a parport/ppa interaction.
Try powering off and on the Zip drive and see if printing works again.

Let me know what happens.

Thanks,
Tim.
*/

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