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1.1 root 1: .TH VA 4
2: .UC 4
3: .SH NAME
4: va \- Benson-Varian interface
5: .SH SYNOPSIS
6: .B #include <sys/vcmd.h>
7: .SH DESCRIPTION
8: The Benson-Varian printer/plotter in normally used with the programs
9: .IR vpr (1),
10: .IR vprint (1)
11: or
12: .IR vtroff (1).
13: This description is designed for those who wish to drive the Benson-Varian
14: directly.
15: .PP
16: The Benson-Varian at Berkeley uses 11\*(rq by 8\*(rq fan-fold paper.
17: It will print 132 characters per line in print mode
18: and 2112 dots per line in plot mode.
19: .PP
20: In print mode, the Benson-Varian uses a modified ASCII character set.
21: Most control characters print various non-ASCII graphics such as daggers,
22: sigmas, copyright symbols, etc.
23: Only LF and FF are used as format effectors. LF acts as a newline,
24: advancing to the beginning of the next line, and FF advances to the top of
25: the next page.
26: .PP
27: In plot mode, the Benson-Varian prints one raster line at a time.
28: An entire raster line of bits (2112 bits = 264 bytes) is sent, and
29: then the Benson-Varian advances to the next raster line.
30: .PP
31: .B Note:
32: The Benson-Varian must be sent an even number of bytes.
33: If an odd number is sent, the last byte will be lost.
34: Nulls can be used in print mode to pad to an even number of bytes.
35: .PP
36: To use the Benson-Varian yourself, you must realize that you cannot open the
37: device,
38: .I /dev/va0
39: if there is a daemon active.
40: You can see if there is a daemon active by doing a
41: .IR ps (1),
42: or by looking in the directory
43: .I /usr/spool/vad.
44: If there is a file
45: .I lock
46: there, then there is probably a daemon
47: .IR /usr/lib/vad
48: running.
49: If not, you should remove the
50: .I lock.
51: .PP
52: In any case, when your program tries to open the device
53: .I /dev/va0
54: you may get one of two errors.
55: The first of these
56: ENXIO
57: indicates that the Benson-Varian is already in use.
58: Your program can then
59: .IR sleep (2)
60: and try again in a while, or give up.
61: The second is
62: EIO
63: and indicates that the Benson-Varian is offline.
64: .PP
65: To set the Benson-Varian into plot mode you can use the following
66: .IR ioctl (2)
67: call
68: .IP
69: ioctl(fileno(va), VSETSTATE, plotmd);
70: .PP
71: where
72: .B plotmd
73: is defined to be
74: .IP
75: \fBint\fR plotmd[] = { VPLOT, 0, 0 };
76: .PP
77: and
78: .I va
79: is the result of a call to
80: .I fopen
81: on stdio.
82: When you finish using the Benson-Varian in plot mode you should advance to
83: a new page
84: by sending it a FF after putting it back into print mode, i.e. by
85: .sp .1i
86: 'nf
87: \fBint\fR prtmd[] = { VPRINT, 0, 0 };
88: \&...
89: fflush(va);
90: ioctl(fileno(va), VSETSTATE, prtmd);
91: write(fileno(va), "\ef\e0", 2);
92: .fi
93: .PP
94: .IR N.B. :
95: If you use the standard I/O library with the Benson-Varian you
96: .B must
97: do
98: .IP
99: setbuf(vp, vpbuf);
100: .PP
101: where
102: .I vpbuf
103: is declared
104: .IP
105: \fBchar\fR vpbuf[BUFSIZ];
106: .PP
107: otherwise the standard I/O library, thinking that the Benson-Varian
108: is a terminal (since it is a character special file) will not adequately buffer
109: the data you are sending to the Benson-Varian.
110: This will cause it to run
111: .B extremely
112: slowly and tends to grind the system to a halt.
113: .SH FILES
114: /dev/va0
115: .br
116: /usr/include/sys/vcmd.h
117: .SH SEE ALSO
118: vfont(5), vpr(1), vtroff(1), vp(4)
119: .SH BUGS
120: The 1's (one's) and l's (lower-case el's) in the Benson-Varian's
121: standard character set look very similar; caution is advised.
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