[TriLUG] OT: IBM NetVista serial ports

[Ed Hill]

On Mon, 2002-06-17 at 11:00, Andrew Perrin wrote:
> Sorry if this is off-topic but I'm hoping someone can help me out.
> 
> I've got an IBM NetVista A40 and I'm trying to get a CoStar LabelWriter XL
> to work on it.  I've tested the label printer, and it works fine on:
> 
> - a Windows 98 laptop; and
> - a Debian 2.2r6 laptop
> 
> To test, I used pbm2lwxl to generate a binary file that can be copied to
> the label printer. When I copy it to /dev/ttyS0 on my laptop, I get the
> label printed out fine.  I used stty -F /dev/ttyS0 --save to generate the
> settings on that port, and then used those settings on the IBM, so I know
> the serial ports are set the same.  
> 
> When I copy the same binary file to /dev/ttyS0 on the IBM, there is no
> response at all - the printer does nothing.
> 
> The reason this is off topic is that if I boot to a DOS diskette and do
> the same thing (e.g., copy small.out com1:) nothing happens on the IBM. So
> I think it's got something to do with the serial ports themselves.
> 
> The ports are activated in BIOS, and they are doing *something* - if I
> switch the label printer on and off while running statserial /dev/ttyS0,
> the CTS value switches. So there is some communication.
> 
> Does anyone have any bright ideas?


Hi Andrew,

  1) Is the serial port turned on in the BIOS?  Many machines ship 
     by default with serial ports disabled.

  2) As the root user, what does "/bin/setserial -g /dev/ttyS[0-8]" 
     output?  This will tell us if (and on what device) the serial 
     port(s) are assigned on Linux.

  3) What does "ls -al /dev/ttyS[0-8]" say?  This will tell us if 
     you have permissions set so that any user can access the port.

hth,
Ed

-- 
Edward H. Hill III, PhD 
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