> My understanding of the printer problem leads to believe this is not
> terribly easy.
it's not terribly difficult either. however nobody will program this
either :<
> If every program out there uses the BIOS interrupts to send data to the
> printer, then it is pretty easy -
*every* sane program used BIOS interrupts to communicate to the
printer, which could be redirected by
NET USE LPT2 \\server\printername http://support.microsoft.com/kb/245017
Novell also could redirect LPTx to a network printer
> you install a handler to intercept the
> BIOS calls and buffer the outgoing data elsewhere. The outgoing data
> then gets sent via a network to the printer. A TSR is not really even
> needed; you can have a standard program do this, shell to DOS, and then
> run the program to be intercepted from there. Not as convenient as a
> TSR, but much easier for debugging.
a standard program shelling out to DOS is equivalent to a TSR which is too big.
> However, if a program "bit bangs" the parallel port directly
nobody sane ever did that (for printing purpose).
> you can't
> capture that output. I don't know of any technique that allows one to
> intercept raw port I/O commands, unless you are running in a virtual
> machine (virtual 8086 mode included). Then the host operating system
> technically can intercept raw port I/O.
if you don't care about the size of the TSR, you are running protected
mode stuff.
> The mTCP netcat program can be used to send the contents of a file
> straight to a printer. I think the HP JetDirect stuff (often found on
> other printers) is pretty crude; it is just an open port and there is no
> protocol or handshaking required.
there's just a teeny weeny little problem remaining: DOS programs
don't understand the HP JetDirect printer language.
If you want more then plain ASCII (exciting stuff like bold, smaller font,...)
this is a problem.
Tom
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