COMMENT ⊗   VALID 00008 PAGES
C REC  PAGE   DESCRIPTION
C00001 00001
C00002 00002	---- Canon printer system overview 		by RAS	 ----
C00005 00003	---- The Canon and TEX files,  PTex and Cantor and fonts ----
C00009 00004	---- Cantor: switches                                    ----
C00012 00005	---- Cantor: output and errors                           ----
C00018 00006	---- the Canon interface:  CStart 			 ----
C00021 00007	---- the Canon printer 					 ----
C00026 00008	---- printing your output with CPrint			 ----
C00030 ENDMK
C⊗;
---- Canon printer system overview 		by RAS	 ----

   Address questions, suggestions and bug sightings to RAS.  
   (incl questions on Cantor, CStart, CPrint and VNT fonts,
  font conversion, using the Canon and quality of the output.)

But, I am on vacation till October 1...  You're on your own...
----------------------------------------------------------------------

OVERVIEW:
The Canon printer system includes:
    hardware:
	the Canon printer 
	a specially designed Z8000 micro-processor (and a power supply)

    software:
	CStart which runs Dial to ready the Sail/Z8000 interface
	    Z, the assembly program Dial loads into the Z8000
	    G, to start the program in the Z8000
	PTex, to create DVI files,
	Cantor, to translate DVI into CAN files 
	CPrint, to send a CAN or text file to the Canon for printing

Roughly, the procedure for using the Canon is:
	prepare your text file or
	prepare your CAN file, run PTex on a TEX file, then run Cantor

	If it has not ready for use, initialize the Canon by:
		making sure the z8000 power supply is on,
		push the z8000's red button
		do CStart[can,sys] as outlined on page 6

	and send your file to the Canon by doing CPrint

NOTE: You HAVE TO baby-sit the Canon while it is printing.  There are
	intermittent glitches in the line which can cause unpredictable
	errors.  You must be ready to stop the Canon if it starts
	spewing paper, reinitialize it and run CPrint again.

	Only one person at a time may spool with CPrint, there is no
	queuing program yet.

	If you leave the Canon uninitialized, eg after it has blown
	due to some error, push the z8000's red button once to
	protect the next user.

But don't stop here, the details are vital.  Read on!


---- The Canon and TEX files,  PTex and Cantor and fonts ----

		PREPARING YOUR TEX FILE

TEX:
Compile your program in MYFILE.TEX with:  
  .R PTex  			(report any problems to IAZ)
  *\input myfile
This will create a file MYFILE.DVI on your directory.

CANTOR:
Make a .CAN file from your .DVI file with Cantor:
  .R Cantor			(report any problems to RAS)
and to the prompt, type MYFILE (it only accepts .DVI files).

    Cantor reworks the DVI file so that it is well-ordered and
includes pictures of the characters needed on each page.  More
information about Cantor and switches is on the next page.

FONTS:
(For font info while printing text files, see section on CPrint.)

    PTex gets its font information from TFX files in some directory,
the default is [XGP,SYS].  Most fonts currently have TFX and FNT
files on [XGP,SYS].  Some have TFX and VNT files on [CAN,SYS].  

    Cantor only uses VNT files and looks for them on [CAN,SYS] unless
you specify a directory in your TEX file (but include no extension)
Most Computer Modern fonts are already there, most others are not.
A proper font definition is thus "\font z=cmsy10[can,sys]".  If you
do not include the [can,sys], PTex will look in [XGP,SYS] for the
TFX file and Cantor will look in [CAN,SYS], and there is no quarantee
that the two fonts' TFX files match.

    If a font file is not found, Cantor will wait in a loop until a 
file of that name exists or you type <call>.  (Someday this may change
to let you specify a different font and punt...)  

    You can make a VNT file by running FNTCHR and then CHRVNT.  This
works, but produces fonts that are too thick.  Canon prints look much
better with finer fonts.  For fonts created with metafont, try 
generating the font again (telling metafont to produce a CHR file)
and set the variable "blacker" to 0.3. 
    The exact metafont commands are:
.R MF↔ mode=1; chrmode; blacker=.2; input <file>↔
where <fiie> is the metafont file name, and you'll be blessed with about
5 lines and 5 minutes of output.

---- Cantor: switches                                    ----

CANTOR SWITCHES:
Cantor currently excepts 5 switches.  After the file name, type "/"
    and any of the following:

C #   COPIES (default 1, range 1-20); the number of copies of each
	page you want produced.
P # # PAGE RANGE (default 1-250) If you only want to compile some of the 
	pages of your dvi file, type a first page number (first page is 1) 
	and a last page number.  For just one page, enter its number.
	The numbers are ordinal numbers and have nothing to do with actual
	page numbers.  Note: Cantor will print at most 250 pages.
H n/y HEADER: Default is No.  If something goes wrong while printing and
	you have specified headers, try without them. 
D #   DATA (default 22,000, range 1,000-24,500); the maximum
	number of bytes available for a page in the z8000 memory.
	This is approximate, so leave at least 500 bytes margin.
	The larger MAXD is, the less often Cantor will have to pack,
	the smaller it is, the safer you are.  If you get a problem
	that crashes the Canon, try recompiling with smaller MAXD.
L #   LMARG (default 132=1.3cm, range 0-2000); is the default left
	margin.  The default centers TEX's basic format.  TEX often
	assumes there will be a margin and tries to write left of it
	by giving negative x-coordinates.  Cantor will get violent if
	TEX tries to write left of 0.  If this happens, look at the
	number Cantor tells you and recompile, increasing the margin
	by at least that negative quantity.  And do not increase it so 
	much that the page goes too far to the right!
 
Cantor will echo its values as it begins processing your file.
    MAXD=22000 lmarg=132 pp:1→250 copies:1

---- Cantor: output and errors                           ----

READING CANTOR OUTPUT:
Cantor produces two lines of output for every page, eg:
    [3-p2⊂⊃⊂⊃.(s)(c)(3040){90/90/67} p=0 e=1419 u=1280 n=1760 jd=0 i=268
	 totpag=2028 totmem=4727 (n) (o)]
    The first number is the current pagenumber, the second is the page number
according to TEX.  A "⊂" is printed whenever a font file is opened to be
read; when it ha been read in, the "⊃" is printed.  "(s)" means a page
has been read in and sorted, "(c)" means the number of bytes of output data
have been counted, "(p)" means a pack was needed.  The "(n)" is printed 
when the new character definitions have been  output and the "(o)" means
outputting the page has been finished. 

    The 6 quantities on the right are number of bytes of data rquired for
different kinds of information.  P is packing info, E is extra, unneeded
(on this page) character data already in the z8000, U is used (on this
page) data in the z8000, n is new data to be sent there, jd is junk and
should always be zero and I is the amount of instruction data to print the
page.  The number in parentheses after the "(s)(c)" is the amount of font
data needed by the page and should be equal to the U+N data.

    The totpag figure is approximately the total number of data bytes on
the page and should thus be equal to N+I data.  The totmem figure is an
estimate of the total amount of memory space needed inside the Z8000 for 
the page of data and should be about equal to P+E+U+N+I.
    These figures will not be exact if a PACK occurs, but should be close.

    A glyph is a character if it is short enough, or a slice of a character.
The three numbers in the braces "{#/#/#}" are the number of glyphs on the
page, the number of glyphs that really fit on the page due to the z8000's
limited memory and the number of different glyphs on the page.  Hopwfully
the first two numbers will be equal and the third number will be less than
480.  If not, Cantor will try to end the page early.  From what I have seen,
this doesn't quite work, but even if it did, it would look ugly.  Though it
will bbe fixed next month sometime, the solution is to use fewer fonts and/or
smaller fonts.  For instance, trying to print all of the characters in a
CMR22 font is too much for the Canon.  However, no page in the entire TEX
manual is too big.  
    NOTE: if you only use one font, but tell TEX that you are using ten fonts
and define them all to be the same font file, Cantor will also think you are
using many fonts and it may be too much.

ERRORS:
    Currently, the only errors in Cantor occur if the page has too much
data and this can be detected as stated in the two preceding paragraphs.
If you get something like an array index out-of-bounds error, it is 
probably a similar mistake.  Please send me a copy of the error.
    There are also survivable errors.  The two most common are: 
"left of page- wrapping" and "page too wide- wrapping".  The x value,
which should be between 0 and 2012 is also given.  This means that TEX
tried to put characters left or right of the margins, resp.  This can
happen if Cantor's margin value is set badly (ie, it disagrees with the
margins TEX thinks it is using).  The latter error can also occur if
overfull boxes are too wide.  Check the TEX errors.  Boxes that are nearly
200 points to wide using the Basic settings will cause these problems.

---- the Canon interface:  CStart 			 ----

CStart sets your directory to [can,sys] and then runs Dial which assigns
a terminal port for the Canon and its Z8000 micro processor and loads the
micro with its printing program.  All you have to do is input the file 
that initializes the program and give the command to start it running and
exit from Dial.

Initializing the Z8000 and its Sail interface:
	Push in the red button on the Z8000 board (back, left) 
once to reset it.  First, type .DO CStart[can,sys] and wait till you see
four and a quarter lines of chain link fencing followed by a "<", then type
meta-i.  You will be prompted for a file name.  You are in [can,sys] and the
file is named G.  Wait for three lines ending with another "<".  Type another
G to tell the z8000 to go, followed by a return and then type meta-q to stop
Dial.  

In the following, you type the upper case on the lines marked with "*****"
and the approximate prompts are in lower case.  "↔" stands for a carriage 
return that you are supposed to type.

*****	.DO CSTART[CAN,SYS]↔          
	   
	↑C
	.
	.Flushed
	.Aren't you glad you use DIAL?
	Ready.
	   
	Input file name:        
	?<t
	⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪
	⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪
	⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪
	⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪
*****	⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪⊃∪<βi
*****	Input file name:        G↔     
	R RPC
	RPC 0000 <8800
	RFC 000 <4000
*****	<G↔                          
*****	βQ
	exit
	↑C
	.
	.

and the Canon is ready!   Again, your inputs were:
	do CStart[can,sys]↔ βi G↔ g↔ βq


Now you are ready to turn on the Canon...

---- the Canon printer 					 ----

INITIALIZING THE CANON:
	Turn on the Canon using the large black plastic toggle
on the side (the side that is to the right of the paper tray).
The ready/wait light will blink for a few seconds.  If any other
lights are on, try turning the Canon off and on quickly.  If the 
lights persist, take care of the error conditions as outlined below.

ERROR CONDITIONS:
Documentation is in Canon's (red, spiral bound) notebook.  Briefly:
When lit, the four buttons with sketches above them mean, from left
to right:

  1) Maybe the paper cassette is installed incorrectly.  If the Canon
needs more paper, remove the black paper tray from the left side
of the Canon (just pull gently but firmly).  Find the paper, NOTE (!)
carefully which side is up and add some paper face up to the tray.
Reinsert the tray (put it in approximately the right place, push
gently and the tray will be guided in).

  2) Maybe the Canon needs more premix.  Try opening and closing the
left front panel.  If the light persists, try again.  If it persists,
it really needs it.  Find a bottle (a Canon bottle with a picture of
a drop like the picture above the light, probably below the table) and 
shake it well. Open the front left panel and pour one third bottle
into the black tray that leads to the tank.

  3) Some paper may be caught in the Canon innards.  Try opening
and closing the front left panel.  If this does not work, there 
may really be some paper caught.  Remove it carefully.  For help
see pages 18-21 of the "Canon LBP-10 Operation Manual". 

  4) if the little toner bottle in the Canon is empty, take it out
(turn CCW `135 and pull it out), and replace it with a full one
(probably below the table) making sure the toner is shaken and the 
black valve is on the bottle properly and put it back into the Canon.  
If it is not empty, the toner is clogging the valve, try turning the 
bottle CW & CCW  few times.



Now that your input is ready, the interface is set-up and the Canon
is ready, you are ready to send your output to the Canon with CPrint.

---- printing your output with CPrint			 ----

[your text or CAN file should be ready, and the Canon has been
 initialized with CStart]

If you just initialized the Canon, type .DO CPrint; if it was
    already initialized type instead .R CPrint

If you have TEX output from your MYFILE.TEX file, to the prompt 
    type MYFILE.CAN/  eg:

file? myfile.can
    Usually you will see:   meaning:
    H Handshake done        Handshake acknowledged, Z8000's listening
    SSSSSSSSSSSSSW          Data sent, (W marks the end of a page)
    SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSW   And another page sent
    S

If you have text in a file MYFILE.ANY, to the prompt type MYFILE.ANY/
    and you will be prompted for a font file.  If you have a special
    one in mind, give its name (it MUST be an FNT file available on
    XGP,SYS) or hit return and FIX20 will be selected.  If you do choose 
    another font and your listing contains characters not in the font, TS
    may very well blow up (spewing forth many lines of hex code) in which
    case you will have to reset the interface (with CStart) and run CPrint
    with a better choice of font.

If all goes well, you will be reprompted.  Typically the whole process 
takes 15-30 seconds.  To leave TS, type <CALL>

WARNING: do not spool a file till the last one is out!

ERRORS:
If a minute or so passes and nothing happens, first check the lights
on the Canon.  If any are lit, see the section on the Canon.  You 
probably don't need to reset anything, just fix the printer and wait.

On occasion you will get:
H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H  etc..
which means TS keeps sending a handshake but receives no
acknowledge; the Canon spooler was improperly initialized or
fouled by an error, try  re-initializing the Canon (with CStart).

Also, you might get junk that looks like Hex code.  Ignore it. 
It may be part of the trouble if things don't work, but it
probably just means there is some noise in the line.     

Also, someone may go to sleep while printing a long file.  If you
get a few lines of SSSSSS etc and then suddenly nothing, bummer.
First type <CALL> followed by CONT (continue), maybe several
times.  If that dosn't work, try turning the Canon off and on quickly, 
but most probably you'll have to DO CStart again and/or wait for the
new spooler coming to a theater near you in the next few months.

If you have more problems, please remember the system is young
and send me your story.  		thanks,  RAS