Can any of you whizzes help me with what I thought *should* have been a
simple problem?
I have an Intel Mac running Leopard.
I want to drive an old 8 bit parallel interface.
To do this, I have a Prolific Technologies USB to Parallel converter.
All is good on the hardware side, but I'm mentioning it just for
background.
Specifically, I am trying to print a raw ASCII file using CUPS and
whatever Leopard has provided for it's interface.
I just want a print queue for RAW output on what it thinks is a USB
printer.
I can drag and drop text files to print them. I'm fine with that.
I've set it up to the best of my ability and it *does* work, but has
two huge errors...
1. If you close the window of the print queue, it's gone forever.
Launching the queue again (the app) does nothing.
This as compared to launching the queue app for my postscript printer,
does open.
That printer does have PPD assigned to it.
The USB converter "printer" I made up, doesn't.
2. When printing an ASCII text file, it first sits and declares that
the device isn't ready, the "device" being the USB to Parallel
converter.
But by unplugging and replugging the USB side of this converter, it
somehow wakes it up and does do a proper print.
Otherwise it sits and stares.
I did not assign a PPD to this "USB printer."
Should I have?
I can't find one that's appropriate and don't know how to edit one to
be a dummy.
The USB / Parallel converter comes with no drivers or printer files.
It says in the manual "it doesn't need any."
It's recognized by OSX fine, but Leopard will only allow me to choose a
"driver", which I can't find and may not really need anyways.
It's not a postscript printer.
Anyone have a clue here?
Permissions?
Leopard's implementation of CUPS?
A script needed?
PPD must be assigned even if it's a dummy?
I'm a fairly smart guy, but know absolutely squat about Unix, CUPS and
scripting.
Btw, there is some coolness factor here.
The parallel interface mentioned above is for driving a burning/cutting
co2 laser.
See: http://www.synthfool.com/laser
if interested.
Thanks for any help.
K
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