Table of Contents

General Description

The HOSTPrint utility is used to print CHARON output to Windows printers. Typically it receives data from COM2 port of emulated Alpha model via a TCP/IP socket and prints the data received on the default Windows printer (if no printer is specified at the utility command line) on the host computer.

Note that the second console line "TTA0" (COM2) is available only for 1 CPU models such as:

AlphaServer 400
AlphaServer 800
AlphaServer 1000
AlphaServer 1000A
AlphaServer DS10
AlphaServer DS10L
AlphaServer DS15

Usage

HOSTPrint calling is specified in the CHARON configuration file. The call implements one or more of the following parameters:

Parameter	Description
-host=<hostname>	Name of the host - source of the printing data.
-port=<connection port number>	Port on the host to get the information to print from.
-delay=<delay for automatically buffer flush in seconds>	Flushing delay, 0 - wait infinite, 5..10800 - timeout for flush
-printer=[PrinterDeviceName]	Host name for the printer used. Example 1: `-printer=[\\.\Microsoft Office Document Image Writer]` Example 2: `-printer=[\\print_server\MSCLPS]`
-font=<default font name>	Default font name.
-fontsize=<default font size>	Default font size.

The two last parameters are only used for compatibility with older versions of the utility (HOSTprint allows changing font settings from a popup menu).

It is strongly recommended to use fixed-size fonts (by default the "Courier" font is used) to avoid any problems relevant to proper calculation of the printing line length.

Example of CHARON-AXP configuration file for the HOSTPrint usage:

set COM2 alias = TTA0 port = 10000 
set COM2 application = "hostprint.exe -port=10000 -printer=[\\print_server\MSCPS2] 
-font=\Courier New\ -fontsize=10"

After initialization, HOSTprint creates an icon in the Windows tray. The icon can have two colors:

Color	Description
GREEN	IDLE (or Ready) state
YELLOW	BUSY (processing) mode

*: To access the HOSTprint application popup menu, point the mouse cursor at its icon in the system tray menu and click the right button, preview the last page content then change the utility mode via the flush buffer delay or change the default font setting.

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