Subject: DeskWriter support

From: Software Development <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 27 Jul 1996 19:10:15 -0500 (CDT)

It's possible to use netatalk to present a DeskWriter as a PostScript
printer by shoving PostScript through ghostscript to produce
DeskWriter-speak, and then handing the result off to pap (for a DeskJet
you could presumably do something similar, although at the endpoint of
the process you would deliver the print file through a serial or parallel
port).

However, over on the linux-atalk list, we've been kicking around
the topic of how to get netatalk to present a DeskWriter as a DeskWriter,
e.g., so you could use a standard DeskWriter driver on a client Macintosh
and hand the print job off to netatalk.  One correspondent's result is
as follows:

>From: Michael Land Morgan <[email-masked]>
>Subject:      DeskWriter/DeskJet
>
>After looking in etc/papd/main.c, I found how to get the Chooser
>DeskWriter driver to recognize my printer.  I got DeskWriter 6.0.3 from
>an HP web site and installed it.  On the Linux side, I edited my
>papd.conf file.  I changed the name from hp550c to hp550c\:DeskWriter.
>Then, when papd parses the file, it identifies the name as hp550c and the
>printer type as DeskWriter.  The nbp_name man page reveals how the
>printer name field, the first field in each papd.conf entry, contains the
>name.  The name field may also contain a type following a ":" and a zone
>following a "@" character.  nbp_name, which is called in the main.c file,
>parses the first field up into a name, a type, and a zone.
>
>Unfortunately, this solution doesn't work. The chooser lists the name
>hp550c as a choice when I choose DeskWriter (AT).  When I try to print to
>it, the Macintosh just locks up.  In the Linux logs, I see a message, but
>nothing happens.  The following is an example message from the logs:
>Jul 26 22:35:42 dedalus papd[31216]: child 31233 for "hp550c" from 65477.61
>About this time, the Mac has locked up.
>
>Does anyone have an idea about what might make it work?  I don't have any
>idea what causes the freeze on the Mac.  I appreciate the responses so
>far, and they seem to point toward this set up being possible.

I tried something similar (modified interpretation of papd.conf to allow
a pt= capability for specifying the printer type -- a two-line patch).
But my result was similar:

>Well, I tried a similar procedure, and got the same result.  The client
>Macintosh locks up.  Hard.
>
>One other thing that happens prior to the attempt to print: after clicking
>the printer name in the Chooser, the Macintosh attempts to contact the
>printer to (I guess) check out what model DeskWriter it is.  The attempt
>fails of course: papd has no idea what to reply to the client.  Then
>the Macintosh presents a popup menu of DeskWriter models and you tell
>it manually what kind of printer it should generate output for.  (My
>printer is a 540c.)

Is this just not possible?  Or does anyone have an idea of how to proceed?
One conjecture on linux-atalk was that DeskWriters simply don't speak PAP.
I dunno; seems like they do, because I can print using pap under MkLinux
to my DeskWriter.  But for the situation above, the problem seems to be
with getting the Macintosh DeskWriter driver to talk to papd properly.

Paul DuBois
[email-masked]