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Technical Question
08-02-2011, 12:27 AM
Is anyone here familiar with the Epson TM-88 series of point-of-sale printers? I'm trying to write a utility to store images in its non-volatile memory (which except for the bizarre coding of the image data is -- theoretically -- rather simple and straightforward), but for some reason, the image data I'm sending the printer is coming out as printed garbage instead of being stored. As they're pretty universal -- even if you don't know the model number it's almost guaranteed you've seen one -- I'm hoping someone here has experience with the Epson ESC/POS "language" and can offer some advice as to what I might be doing wrong.
Thanks.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
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Quote:You’ve probably seen the TM-T88III before, though the current model is the TM-T88IV–they’re ubiquitous and especially common in restaurants. We chose it because the receipt prints quickly (which reduces the probability that a stack of order receipts gets missorted such that an employee puts the wrong receipt in the wrong parcel), is thermal so there is no ink to replace (which reduces the cost of consumables), uses standard thermal receipt paper (which is cheap, and we can always run out to Staples if we run out), and, perhaps most importantly, we found one in a box in the back of the warehouse.
Lol.
http://nicholas.piasecki.name/blog/2009 ... nd-escpos/
Or you could implement my solution.
![[Image: sledge-hammer-fiberglass-148018.jpg]](http://www.gemplers.com/img/sledge-hammer-fiberglass-148018.jpg)
To clarify - I loathe POS printers. I had one go tango-uniform because the mac address of the ethernet port it was connected to had changed.. it had gotten moved from port 2 to port 4 on the same switch during a network remodel, and this was enough to make it not play - even after it was moved back to port 2.
and I really don't want to talk about thermal line printers connected to t1 meters.. blech.
"No can brain today. Want cheezeburger."
From NGE: Nobody Dies, by Gregg Landsman
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5579457/1/NGE_Nobody_Dies
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I'm working from that article, actually. His code doesn't do what I needed -- it sends j. random bitmap directly to output. I'm trying to store my images in the printer's memory, which he doesn't really address. But his code was a good place to start.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
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I'm not sure if this will help, however, the printer says it supports TM88 emulation. Chapter 8 starts the TM8x section: http://www.mscashdrawer.com/Tech_Information/m80pm.pdf
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I've never really thought of that too much. It's probably possible considering when I've done some field maintenance on a IBM receipt printer in the self-diagnostic tests it was mentioning info on what was in memory and it had a image in there. An image I think came out during a self-test and the attached pos was down. I probably know someone that would know for sure and if he does he's probably got a program to do it - he sells & maintains POS units.
Most of the time the units I work on, I think just send the required image to the printer when it's deemed needed.
As for a networked thermal printer, I know some have a Ethernet port I've yet to see it be used it's mostly been just some form of serial(USB, RS-232, IBM's oddness) or parallel.
Here's a curly tech question, has anyone come across a stand-alone MS Office-compatible database-like application that I can use in a Motorola/Symbol MC70 - yes I do own a 2nd hand one, no I haven't enabled the GSM phone yet and I've still to acquire a wifi module for it. I know what I'd like it to be like -filemaker pro or MS works DB form page- but I doubt it would be a simple as that due to the output needing to go into certain fields of a excel worksheet. Which I can do now manually with it but it's fiddly.
--Rod.H
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Quote:I'm not sure if this will help, however, the printer says it supports TM88 emulation.
Thanks, I'll give it a look right away. Because it's almost 24 hours later, and despite two radical rewrites, a change in choice of commands and data encoding, and a few other smaller things, I still can't get the damned thing to work. Well, to be honest, I've stopped the garbage printing, and it looks it's sending the image to memory, but if it's actually there, it won't print.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
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Can you fire up a serial session and just bit-bash commands to the thing to verify 100% what it has to say? rule out the middleman, so to speak?
"No can brain today. Want cheezeburger."
From NGE: Nobody Dies, by Gregg Landsman
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5579457/1/NGE_Nobody_Dies
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I'd like to, and I sorely want to, but... My work machine is a laptop without a real serial port. I have a weird little USB-to-serial adapter thingie made by Belkin sitting in the middle between the machine and the printer, and I have some sneaking suspicions about what it might be doing to my datastreams. I can't open it as a com port because it's only pretending to be a com port -- although it comes up on the system list of serial ports, attempting to access it directly throws a "port does not exist" error.
So first thing tomorrow, I'm going to figure out how to write to a USB port directly in either C# or VB.NET, and see if I can talk directly to the printer that way.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
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Oh, that's nasty. I have the same problem, except I use mine for console access to various radios and whatnot. I am using
http://www.newegg.com/Pro...spx?Item=N82E16812191067
And third party programs such as TeraTerm are able to open it as Com1 and write to it.
"No can brain today. Want cheezeburger."
From NGE: Nobody Dies, by Gregg Landsman
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5579457/1/NGE_Nobody_Dies
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Mm. That looks pretty much like a basic adapter cable. The http://www.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage. ... _Id=129218]Belkin adaptor I have to work through actually has some kind of active circuitry inside it -- it's got a translucent shell through which I can see it, as well as the three LEDs that report on its operation. And it has one walloping hell of a driver package that has to be installed before it'll work.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
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nope, it's active. Works on my muxen and channel banks and even my adtrans, and those damn things hate everyone. This one has a smallish driver pack, and like I mentioned, works with programs that want to get funky with the serial port.
"No can brain today. Want cheezeburger."
From NGE: Nobody Dies, by Gregg Landsman
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5579457/1/NGE_Nobody_Dies
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Hm. Well, as soon as the more-hardware-than-software guy gets in this morning, I'm going to see about borrowing a box with a real serial port and try my program there. Wish me luck.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
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On the subject, can anyone recommend a way to hook up an ancient parallel-only printer to a modern USB-only computer? I have this HP Laserjet 4...
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.
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Quick google-fu points to TigerDirect: Parallel-USB cable
![[Image: ULT40113-call01-sp.jpg]](http://images.highspeedbackbone.net/itemdetails/ULT40113/ULT40113-call01-sp.jpg)
---
The Master said: "It is all in vain! I have never yet seen a man who can perceive his own faults and bring the charge home against himself."
>Analects: Book V, Chaper XXVI
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USB to Parrallel port
08-04-2011, 12:54 AM
You might have trouble with the driver, but there are USB to Parrallel port devices.
Also you need to be careful about the kind of parallel port your printer has, you might have to buy an additional adapter that will plug between the USB adapter and your printer's parallel port.
here are a bunch of adapter sold at amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/s/r...lel+port&x=0&y=0
The above adapters should in theory work on any computer that has a USB port, but remember your printer drivers will be going through another level of drivers that are emulating a actual physical device on a USB port so the more exotic functions and capabilities might not work correctly or give strange results as Mr. Schroeck's programming problem appear to be related to.
You would be better off adding a "real" parallel port to your computer if possible, below is a list of cards for desktop computers that take a little more technical skill to make functional, but are more likely to let your printer work with a computer assuming it's a desktop with room for the expansion.
http://www.amazon.com/s/r...rt+cards&x=0&y=0
Hope this helps
howard melton
God bless
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Okay, well, this project is now on hold. My boss has thrown new hardware at me to write a library for, so the image-burning stuff is pushed to the side.
And you know, I took a photo of my workspace yesterday to post to show just how much stuff I'm working with -- but after this afternoon, I now have twice as much stuff (though fewer visible cables) and need to take a new picture...
Everyone who offered advice, thank you.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
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Well I just looked at the 'owners manual' for the NCR thermal printer I typically encounter, which just happens to do what you asked about for the Epson. It's an eyeopener for a hardware guy. You can upload multiple 576x512 pixel bitmaps into either ram or nvam, provided you don't go crazy & try and upload a single 2 Meg bitmap on a 512k printer.
It's just the software control codes to do all a that...well let's just say if I was configuring one of these from scratch I'd be looking for a nice friendly GUI application to help me.
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Quote:well let's just say if I was configuring one of these from scratch I'd be looking for a nice friendly GUI application to help me.
There is one, provided by Epson of course. But I was trying to write a DLL that would provide a method of doing so in one step for an unsophisticated user. (And no, I didn't solve the problem; I got handed two other tasks to do and it got pushed onto the back burner, where it still resides.)
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
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