Ricoh (was Re: Why can't use a2ps to replace apsfilter outright?)

[John Culleton <service@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Andreas Klemm wrote:

>
> 
> 
>> If apsfilter were adapted to my situation
>> I would be glad to go back to it.
> 
> 
> Well, whats your situation ? Apsfilter currently does nearly
> everything what a user needs ... can you clarify ?
> 
> Well currently it can't drive a car ;-)
> 
> BTW You should be more specific concerning errors, etc ....
> Otherwise we can't figure out ...
> 
> 
> 	Andreas ///
I was merely answering another post. Specifically my situation is that I 
have a Ricoh 2000 Laser Printer that has built-in Postscript as well as
PCL5e and PCL6. It will also handle ascii files with a little help.

It prints a ps file OK but then stays in processing mode unless I 
manually cancel it with the reset button. If I run two jobs back to back 
often the first job processes fine but the second job hangs. I have to 
cancel it from the control panel and switch the printer off then on. 
Then it will print fine. It does not give me a processing error or 
memory overflow message --- it just hangs.

I only have the standard 8MB memory. I will upgrade when finances permit.

There are routines on the Ricoh site for HP Unix systems using remote 
printing. I have tried adapting these to my situation (local print,
Linux Slackware) with mediocre results. So today my default print 
routine in printcap just sends a printjob to the queue and the optional
-Pasc routine sends the job by way of a little perl script that handles 
the stairstep effect.

When Apsfilter can handle a printer it does the job elegantly. I find no 
indication of a variant that handles a Postscript printer, let alone my 
Postscript printer.

Here is my printcap:

lp:\
     :lp=/dev/lp0:\
     :sd=/var/spool/lpd/lp:\
     :mx#0:\
     :sh:
asc:\
     :sd=/var/spool/lpd/asc:\
     :lp=/dev/lp0:\
     :if=/root/ricoh/asc:\
     :mx#0:\
     :sh:

As previously mentioned /root/ricoh/asc is the little perl routine.

I am an Apsfilter user from way back. If there is a way to employ it 
usefully with my setup I would be happy to return to the fold.

John Culleton