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Author Topic: Printing Using the Textmode IDE  (Read 15192 times)

rvk

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Re: Printing Using the Textmode IDE
« Reply #15 on: December 08, 2015, 12:07:46 pm »
(afaik PRN is not a parallel port, but a pseudo device that is an alias for the true port (typically LPT or COM))
The printer unit is for TP compatibility so limited.
Can you redirect PRN to a COM port? (I never seen PRN as COM port)
I thought AUX was for COM ports.
PRN defaulted to the first parallel port.

Code: Pascal  [Select][+][-]
  1. AUX             1st serial port
  2. PRN             1st parallel port
  3. COM1 thru COM4  Serial ports
  4. LPT1 thru LPT3  Parallel ports
  5. CON             Keyboard and screen
  6. NUL             Dummy (for testing)

But yes, printer.pp is very limited.

marcov

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Re: Printing Using the Textmode IDE
« Reply #16 on: December 08, 2015, 01:16:46 pm »
Afaik with "mode lpt" you can redirect it to serial. It only /defaults/ to prn.

I couldn't quickly find the exact command, but wikipedia confirms the ability: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOS#Reserved_device_names

rvk

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Re: Printing Using the Textmode IDE
« Reply #17 on: December 08, 2015, 01:32:57 pm »
Afaik with "mode lpt" you can redirect it to serial. It only /defaults/ to prn.
I couldn't quickly find the exact command, but wikipedia confirms the ability: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOS#Reserved_device_names
Yes, you can redirect LPTx to COMx. But you can't directly change the PRN to a COMx.
Ultimately it wouldn't matter because you could redirect LPT1 to COM1 and printing to PRN would still end up on COM1 (but I haven't tested this :)).

B.T.W. the only OS I found that can change PRN to LPTx (where x>1) is DR-DOS 7.02 and higher. Normal MS-DOS can't change it from LPT1. Not even with the MODE LPT-command.

 

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