On 21 Aug 2002, at 8:28, Frederick M. Navarro wrote:

> Hello everyone here, I would like to ask a few questions, we have
> a retailing system which we used EPSON printers originally, but we
> tried another printer, and it is connected via RS232.  The
> retailing machine runs under Win98 SE with 128 MB RAM.  The problem
> I have is with its printing speed, and I've asked the supplier of
> the RS232-printer and they said that connections via RS232 are
> always faster than the LPT connection.  I've read their manual but
> the most I could manipulate is the baud rate by using the MODE
> command.  Has anybody experienced this problem?  Any steps how to
> speed up the printing speed via RS232? Thanks a lot.
>
> Fred


> ... and I've asked the supplier of the RS232-printer and they said
> that connections via RS232 are always faster than the LPT
> connection.

  Well, one of you didn't know what they were talking about.

  An LPT connection sends all of the bits of a character in a single
"clock cycle"; an RS232 connection typically needs 10 clock cycles to
do that.  Unless you crank up the RS232 speed faster than most
printers will support, LPT is going to be faster.

  Old printers -- perhaps including your old Epson model -- were sent
each character as a single 8-bit code, and printed the dot pattern on
the paper.  Modern printers are likely to have Windows generate the
dot pattern, and send the resulting data to the printer, or possibly
(this is the more common RS232 case) send a PostScript description of
the page to the printer to be rendered onto the paper.  In either
case, the *amount* of data sent to the printer is much more than it
would have been in the old days.

  I think you may be able to get more specific assistance if you post
this message to our sister list, PCBUILD, and specify the make and
model of the "RS232" printer you're using.

David Gillett

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