[Coco] need drivewire help

[Gene Heskett]

On Thursday 28 March 2019 12:20:39 Michael R. Furman wrote:

> > On Mar 27, 2019, at 6:25 PM, Gene Heskett <gheskett at shentel.net>
> > wrote:
> >
> > On Wednesday 27 March 2019 16:24:29 Bill Pierce via Coco wrote:
> >> Gene, Drivewire hasn't been updated since about 2014. Aaron has
> >> since moved on with life (he got married LOL), so it's been the
> >> same old DW4 just as you left it. The problem is that Java
> >> changed... every year (or less), and is slowly leaving DW4 behind.
> >
> > Well, TM I am on an older java.  But I'm beginning the process of
> > installing stretch, debian-9.8.0 in the next couple weeks, to
> > replace debian-7.9, wheezy. The wheezy install will remain as the
> > stretch is going on a new drive.
> >
> > So we'll see what falls over with a newer jre I guess.
> >
> > Is anyone else takeing over drivewire maintenance?
>
> Gene,
>
> I’ve been meaning to try to persuade you to try out pyDriveWire.  It’s
> actively being developed and so far has had 1 or 2 major updates each
> year.
>
> Here is a copy of the pyDriveWire manual for an upcoming release
> slated for April 2019 (the current released version pyDriveWire v0.4
> was released April 2018):
>
> http://www.ocs.net/~n6il/The%20pyDriveWire%20Manual.pdf
>
> I know you use the printing support in the Java DriveWire4 server. 

Sort of, my scripts save the raw text to a 25 cycle round robin tree, 
then when the file is closed, hands it off to cups. Which for raw text 
is pretty fast. 5 to 7 seconds after I have a coco shell prompt back 
from "listing" the file >/p, my brother HL-2040 lights up, waits about 2 
secs tp preheat the drum, then spits out an assembly list it the 2040 
native speed, around 19 PPM. And since its using the cups (or printer, 
I'm not sure) but the text output is magnitudes better than any DMP 
you've seen, much more like a DWP, beautiful stuff IOW.

Preliminary, probably needs work for a different OS or printer, scripts 
are available on my web page in the sig. My script that starts DW, also 
starts this, so its all automatic to suit the lazy cuss I'm turning into 
in my dotage.  Its not dependent on drivewire per sei, but watches the 
directory where drivewire stashes the file with inotifyweait, so when a 
file shows up, its all automatic from there.  So it out to work with 
your snaky version without any huge effort.  Help your self, I think I 
made it gpl-v2.

> pyDriveWire does have “experimental printing support” and it will need
> some work to become more useful for you.  Again your comments on “What
> works for Gene” will be extremely helpful in improving it and getting
> it to par with the java server.

Just have the snake put the raw file someplace, edit my script to watch 
that "someplace" and you ought to be off to the races.

> If you are still interested enough to try it, the project is hosted on
> GitHub.  Again note that some of the things in the manual haven’t been
> officially released yet (but they are checked into the git repository
> if you know where to look, hint: it’s still under “develop”-ment):
>
> https://github.com/n6il/pyDriveWire

I need to get a couple other things, including my taxes out of the way 
before I can concentrate on this, but I suspect you can beat me to it.  
I'm also caretaker for a fadeing wife, COPD.

> I’m receptive to any and all feedback, rants, raves, and bug reports. 
> I can usually turn around a bug fix in a few hours, features take a
> bit longer but still pretty quick.  Let me know  didn’t work or wasn’t
> implemented well and I’ll get it fixed.
>
> —
>
> Michael R. Furman
> Email: n6il at ocs.net
> Phone: +1 (408) 480-5865

Take care Michael.

Cheers, Gene Heskett
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene>