lpstyl version 0.9.9

This is an Apple StyleWriter driver for un*x. It was developed on NetBSD-mac68k, and has been reported to work on NetBSD-i386, linux-pmac, mklinux-ppc, and linux-x86.

This fork on github is there to modernise this tool and keep it alive as the homepage of the original project is not longer valid.

Supported printers include:

• StyleWriter I
• StyleWriter II
• StyleWriter III (aka StyleWriter 1200)
• Color StyleWriter 1500
• Color StyleWriter 2200
• Color StyleWriter 2400
• Color StyleWriter 2500

If you have some breed of StyleWriter besides the ones mentioned here, feel free to try it. The driver should realize that it doesn't know what sort of printer you have and try to treat it like a StyleWriter II or 2400, depending on values the printer returns. Try it and see, and please let me know what happens.

Random notes about this version:

Since the StyleWriter has no built-in fonts, this driver only prints a couple of types of raster image files at 360 dpi (the standard printer resolution of StyleWriters). It is expected that gs will be used to create these files from PostScript files, but if you have some other way of creating them, feel free. The printcap entry and shell scripts in this kit will allow you to "lpr" a postscript or ascii text file and have it printed directly (without ever creating the raster file on disk) by piping output from gs to the driver.

If the printer runs out of paper, the driver will usually wait indefinitely for the problem to go away, retrying every 30 seconds. It will also send messges to the log file to this effect. On the 2400/2500, the retry will be every 5 seconds, and it won't reset the printer or resend any data. I say "usually" because if the out-of-paper condition is detected at the wrong time, the driver doesn't quite know how to deal with it. In these cases, it will exit with an non-zero status.

If you want to turn the printer off during a long print job, the driver needs to be informed so that the printer's buffered data isn't lost. Sending the driver process a SIGUSR1 will tell it to suspend printing after the current page finishes. The driver will print a line to the lpd log file telling you when it is OK to turn off the printer. While printing is suspended, the printer can be turned off, disconnected, etc. (You can even connect a different type of StyleWriter -- when you restart printing, the driver will identify the printer again.) Sending another SIGUSR1 will resume printing with the next page.

The driver program itself is a pure filter -- it depends on lpd to connect its stdin and stdout to an image file and the tty the printer is attached to, respectively. The printcap entry and sample scripts assume that the printer is attached to /dev/stylewriter, which whould be a symbolic link to whatever serial device the printer is connected to. (In netbsd-mac68k, the printer port is /dev/tty01.)

The driver program accepts the following flags:

-f <device node>
    Tells the driver to open a device directly instead of using
    stdout to talk to the printer.

-t <file format>
    Tells the driver which file format to expect for input.  Currently
    this can be pbmraw, bit, or bitcmyk.  Using "bitcmyk" implies that
    the driver will attempt to print in color.

-h <height>
-w <width>
    Tells the driver the height and width of the input file.  This will
    be overridden by the embedded dimension data in pbmraw files.
    These parameters are required for bit and bitcmyk files, since they
    have no embedded height and width.

-m
    Disables the normal cropping that is done to take the top and left
    margins into account.  This probably shouldn't be used for properly 
    typeset pages (it will cause them to be shifted down and to the right 
    instead of being properly placed on the page), but it can be useful
    for files that don't take page margins into account, like some of the
    samples that come with ghostscript.

-v
    Increases the amount of debugging information the driver sends
    to stderr.  Multiple v's give more output.  Currently more than
    two doesn't do anything different, but feel free to add as many
    as you like if it makes you happy.  The stderr of the driver is
    normally directed to /var/log/lpd-errs (or whatever file is
    specified in the printcap entry) by lpd.  Watching this file 
    with 'tail -f' can be informative.

-p letter
-p a4
    Sets the paper size the driver expects.  Default is "letter".

-H <height>
-W <width>
    Another way of setting the paper size.  Height and width are in
    printer pixels.  One printer pixel is 1/360 of an inch.  No sanity
    checking is done on the arguments, so be nice.

-?
    Prints a usage message.

If the driver is compiled with AppleTalk support, the following options are also available:

-a <nbpname>
    Specify the name of the AppleTalk printer you want to use.  This is the
    switch that tells the driver to use AppleTalk instead of serial
    communication.  nbpname can be specified in standard AppleTalk wildcard
    format (properly quoted to avoid shell expansion), but a name which 
    matches multiple devices may produce undesired results.

-u <username>
    Specify the username that will be shown to other users while the printer
    is busy.  This can be any string, but I recommend a proper 'user@host'
    to avoid confusion.  The sample AppleTalk driver scripts show how to 
    do this with the standard parameters that lpd passes to driver programs.

MANIFEST

This kit includes the following files:

• README.md: this file
• README.atalk: notes about using the driver with AppleTalk
• README.troubleshooting: common questions and answers
• README.protocol: information about the control protocol StyleWriters use
• lpstyl.c: the source for the driver program
• adsp.c:
• adsp.h: an implementation of a subset of the adsp protocol
• printcap: a sample printcap file that uses the driver
• printcap.a4: a sample printcap file for use with A4 paper
• stylps:
• stylps-color:
• stylascii: Shell scripts (used by the printcap example) that plug together GhostScript, enscript, and the printer driver in various ways.
  Henceforth known as "the driver scripts".
• stylps-atalk:
• stylps-color-atalk:
• stylascii-atalk: Similar to the above, but using AppleTalk for communication.
• direct_stylpbm:
• direct_stylps: Shell scripts that take pbmraw and postscript files as standard input and use the lpstyl driver (and ghostscript, for direct_stylps) to send them to a StyleWriter connected to /dev/stylewriter. Note that you must have read/write access to the tty for this to work. These are included mostly as examples and for testing purposes. It's much more pleasant to use lpd, once you get it set up.
• styl.ppd: Experimental ppd file for use with systems that expect one (such as netatalk/papd or the LaserWriter 8.5 driver using 'lpd' protocol). This is the first time I've tried writing one of these things, so corrections are welcome.
• control_codes: Information about the control protocol the driver uses, written after the fact. If this file and the source code conflict, believe the source.

INSTALLATION

To make this thing work, do the following:

1. Create a build folder and go inside
2. Run cmake ..
3. Run make
4. lpstyl should be now build.

the rest of this list is probably valid only for netbsd-68k

• make sure that the path to gs is correct in stylps (it assumes /usr/local/gnu/bin/gs)
• make lpstyl and the driver scripts world-executable and put them somewhere public (I suggest /usr/local/sbin)
• make sure that the path to lpstyl is correct in the driver scripts (they assume /usr/local/sbin/lpstyl, etc.)
• make /dev/stylewriter a symbolic link to the serial port your printer is connected to. (On netbsd-mac68k, the printer port is /dev/tty01.)
• install the printcap entries into /etc/printcap (making sure that all paths are correct there, too)
• make sure the spool directory specified in the printcap entry exists
• kick lpd so that it re-reads /etc/printcap

That should do it. Find a postscript file and lpr -Pstylps file.ps
(Or, if you don't have a postscript file handy, print your favorite man page with

groff -mandoc /usr/local/share/man/man1/manpage.1 |lpr -Pstylps'.

CONTACTS

The original author can (still?) be reached via email at monroe@pobox.com. The original homepage of this project was http://www.pobox.com/~monroe/styl/. The page is no longer valid but can still be viewed on the web archive: https://web-beta.archive.org/web/20120507043647/http://homepage.mac.com/monroe/styl/

If you use this driver successfully, or want to use it but can't get it to work, feel free to send me email. If you make improvements to or have questions about this package, please do send them my way.

-- Monroe Williams a.k.a. monroe@pobox.com --

Copyright 1996-2000 Monroe Williams, all rights reserved.