printing dot matrix from FileMaker

[Dan Shoop]

At 4:32 PM -0800 2/13/07, Roger Howard wrote:
>All of that said, printing to dot matrix isn't just like any other device,
>in the sense that you don't tend to send high-resolution page images to
>the device and let it work out how to lay down antialiased dots to form
>the printed image - you ideally want it to send a stream of raw characters
>to the device. So you may not in fact even use a typical OSX print driver
>for that; perhaps a custom serial driver instead (and it is possible to
>pump data to a serial port from FMP with a plugin, but you'll have to work
>out the print protocol unless that comes with the plugin too).

Specifically a dot-matrix or line printer is not the same as a print 
queue but is rather merely a serial device. That is it's a TTY that 
receives text output.

Trting to incorporate such a beast w OS X's concept of CUPS is going 
to be a near impossible lose as they are incompatible in concept.

If you want a dot-matric or line printer all you want is to hook it 
up to a serial port and merely `cat` the output to that tty.
-- 

-dhan

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dan Shoop                                                   AIM: iWiring
Systems & Networks Architect                      http://www.ustsvs.com/
shoop at iwiring.net                                http://www.iwiring.net/
1-714-363-1174

"The wise man doesn't give the right answers, he poses the right
questions." -- Claude Levi-Strauss

------------------------------------------------------------------------

iWiring provides systems and networks support for Mac OS X, unix, and
Open Source application technologies at affordable rates.