Printer without driver

In article ,
Warren Block wrote:

There seems to be a basic misunderstanding between two things here. The
first is the PDL. The second is the method of getting the file to the
printer. Those are two separate things.

Warren-

You're quite right. But both are required in order to print.

One might define a driver as that which does both things. So if you do
both manually, you can print without a driver. If you do only one
thing, then a driver is that which does the other.

Fred

On 1-Nov-2009, Warren Block wrote:

No driver was used to create the file or to print it.

AFAIR the old dot matrix printers didn't need drivers,
you just sent ASCII characters to them, just like
you used to do with the ASR33 Teletypes, and Dec
Writer page printers.
The drivers came in when you had to convert an
application produced document to something
the printer could understand.
And if you got it wrong, instead of a nice printed
page you got sheet after sheet of Postscript
command language, and had to pull the plug
before you ran out of paper.

On Sun, 01 Nov 2009 20:47:26 +0000, Ato_Zee wrote:

AFAIR the old dot matrix printers didn't need drivers, you just sent
ASCII characters to them

Quite a lot of them allowed font selection, character size, page size,
etc. My first printer (1984) was like that - a Canon PW1080A...!



--
Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
http://www.mirrorservice.org

And that's why the printer manufactures always include Printer Driver for
different OS, and this is why we have incompatible and upgrading driver
now
and then.
Some dipstick keeps pratting on that we should blame HP, not
MS, claiming that MS don't write the drivers.
It's MS$ that keeps producing crap operating systems.
MS know how to drive ancient printers because Win95,
Win98, WinME, XP, knows how to drive them.
It's the crap software writers that thought of installing
some legacy programs in compatibility mode, but
didn't follow it through with using printer drivers in
compatibility mode.
So Linux support printers ancient and modern,
Win7 doesn't, and Vista was rubbish.
Sooner MS sack Ballmer the better, he hasn't
a clue about developing what customers want.
I can see MS$ going the same way as PanAm,
and TWA, even the mighty can fall if they don't
listen to their customers.

On 2-Nov-2009, Martin Trautmann wrote:

There must be some kind of interface between computer and printer
anywhere - but there are many print servers around which have more or
less unidirectional communication only and it's a matter of definition
what you may call driving and what not.

Now we are just nit-picking over semantics. In the old
days of the ASR33 teletype, and printers, that just understood
ASCII, the application did the driving, and talked directly
to the I/O, by sending ASCII data bits to an address.
Drivers evolved with different printer languages appeared,
like it was not much good sending Postscript to a dot
matrix, And drivers got more and more complex as
printers got more complex, Postscript, vector graphics,
colour. But in the early days we had no concept of
separate drivers.
MS$'s failing is not to recognise the need to support
both ancient and modern printers Whilst some
programs can be installed (and work) in compatibility
mode, there is no such concept of a compatibility
mode for drivers. If MS$ recognised this, then Linux
which drives printers, scanners, etc, both
ancient and modern, would not be such a threat to
MS$ dominance. MS$ has in the past with earlier
OS's supported these peripherals.
With a compatibility mode for drivers we could use
XP or even Win98 drivers for peripherals.
Many corporate users like the simplicity of Linux and
are getting fed up with bug ridden, insecure, software,
with constant updates and patches "Installing 17 of
29 critical updates" "Don't you dare switch off" then
finding the updates have stopped some important
application working. And life is too short to keep
explaining the problem over and over again to MS$'s
support lines, even when you pay through the nose for
MS premium support.
So it's endless user support, constant tech support,
seemingly endless retraining, loss of productivity, MS$
can be a pain in the arse.

Joel wrote:
It doesn't matter how difficult Windows may do, just to look at it from
the simplest point.

- All you need to do is installing a correct working Printer DRIVER then it
will make every thiing as sinmplest as hitting the PRINT command.

[I've chopped out all the baseless ranting to pass the savings on to YOU!]

Twice now, I've provided methods that anyone can duplicate in order to
create and print files without drivers. I even did them on Windows, and
don't think the scars from that won't last. This is called "proof".

You have claimed that a driver is always required to print. Maybe this
is just a translation problem from your native language into English.

If it's not a language problem, please provide some equivalent proof
that you are correct. Otherwise, I'm going to have to charge for the
full half hour.


Special Free Bonus #1:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Print_driver


Special Free Bonus #2:

Driverless printing in FreeBSD
LaserJet 4250 at 192.168.1.50

echo '%\!PS \
/Helvetica findfont 20 scalefont setfont \
32 32 moveto \
(This prints without a driver! Ha ha ha!) show \
showpage' | nc 192.168.1.50 9100

--
Warren Block * Rapid City, South Dakota * USA

On 11/02/2009 03:31 PM Warren Block scribbled:

Joel wrote:
It doesn't matter how difficult Windows may do, just to look at it from
the simplest point.

- All you need to do is installing a correct working Printer DRIVER then it
will make every thiing as sinmplest as hitting the PRINT command.

[I've chopped out all the baseless ranting to pass the savings on to YOU!]

Twice now, I've provided methods that anyone can duplicate in order to
create and print files without drivers. I even did them on Windows, and
don't think the scars from that won't last. This is called "proof".

You have claimed that a driver is always required to print. Maybe this
is just a translation problem from your native language into English.

If it's not a language problem, please provide some equivalent proof
that you are correct. Otherwise, I'm going to have to charge for the
full half hour.


Special Free Bonus #1:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Print_driver


Special Free Bonus #2:

Driverless printing in FreeBSD
LaserJet 4250 at 192.168.1.50

echo '%\!PS \
/Helvetica findfont 20 scalefont setfont \
32 32 moveto \
(This prints without a driver! Ha ha ha!) show \
showpage' | nc 192.168.1.50 9100


I would invoke Danth's Law here - any seconds??