[vcf-midatlantic] UNIX TOWN --- Repair Workshop Signup for March 30 & 31, 2019

[Jameel Akari]

> 
> I think this would be a Unix-to-USB, a lot harder to do. Though he 
> could
> turn a Raspberry Pi into a remote print server and use print via the 
> TCP/IP
> network, if he has the drivers. This is probably more work than wanted.

This is mostly what I did for my SGI Indy + Indycam + thermal printer 
year before last.
The Indy wrote files to an NFS share on a Rasperry Pi, which watched for 
new files with inotify and piped them into CUPS to run the USB-connected 
printer.  That way when the Indycam took a new photo and saved it, it'd 
immediately print.

I've definitely seen old HP pen plotters hooked up direct to UNIX-y 
workstations; you need applications that generate HPGL output, that's 
the tricky part.  You don't really have a driver per-se in the print 
server, you just dump the raw HPGL into the serial or parallel port and 
the plotter interprets it.

-- 
Jameel Akari