Document 1904
Printmap and Printer
04/13/92
MG

        USING THE PRINTMAP AND PRINTER COMMANDS IN MULTIUSER DOS

DOCUMENTATION REFERENCES
- Page 16-42 in the Multiuser DOS User Guide
- Pages 13-2 to 13-4 in the Multiuser DOS User Guide
- Pages 11-115 to 11-116 in the Multiuser DOS User Guide

DEFAULTS
- The first concept to understand about MDOS port assignments is: while
most DOS applications (and therefore most DOS users) refer to the
printer ports as LPT1, LPT2, etc., and to the serial ports as COM1,
COM2, etc., Multiuser DOS uses these device names as logical names
only, each of which can be mapped to any physical port.  The physical
ports are known to Multiuser DOS as PRN0, PRN1, etc. (for printer
ports), and AUX0, AUX1, etc. (for serial ports).
- The default assignments for PRINTMAP can be seen by typing PRINTMAP
at a prompt.  They are as follows:

Logical name    MDOS Physical           Physical port
                    name

LPT   1         Printer   0             Parallel Port 0
LPT   2         Printer   1             Parallel Port 1
LPT   3         Printer   2             Parallel Port 2

COM   1         Aux       0             COM1 Port
COM   2         Aux       1             COM2 Port or
                                        Multiport 1

- The default descriptions for each possible printer and serial device
are stored in a file called PRINTMAP.DAT (in the OSUTILS directory).
For printing from the console, they are as follows:

MDOS Physical name              Physical port

Printer 0                       Parallel port 0
Printer 1                       Parallel port 1
Printer 2                       Parallel port 2
Printer 3                       COM1 port
Printer 4                       COM2 port or Multiport 1
Printer 5                       Multiport 2
Printer 6                       Multiport 3
   .                                 .
Printer 15                      Multiport 12

Aux     0                       COM1 port
Aux     1                       COM2 port or Multiport 1
Aux     2                       Multiport 2
Aux     3                       Multiport 3
  .                                  .
Aux    15                       Multiport 15

For printing from a terminal:
***The default printer for a terminal is the printer off the back of
that terminal.  To the software running on a terminal, "LPT1" is the
printer that is local to the terminal, by default.  To change this, a
PRINTMAP or PRINTER command would be needed.

- The syntax of PRINTMAP, in general is:
        PRINTMAP Logical name = MDOS Physical name
The effect of this is to map the physical port to the logical port name
for this session only.  If the mapping needs to take effect for every
session on a given terminal, put /* after the mapping.

EXAMPLES

- To send all output that software has directed to LPT3 (from the
session the terminal is in) to the printer defined by the system as
Printer 3 (the printer that is plugged into the device which is plugged
into port COM1), type
        PRINTMAP LPT3 = PRN3

- To assign the label LPT4 to the printer plugged into the second
parallel port on the system, type
        PRINTMAP LPT4 = PRN1

- To reassign the value of LPT1 for a session, one could either type
        PRINTMAP LPT1 = PRNx
where x is the printer number one wishes to use, or one could use the
PRINTER command, to type PRINTER x.  This will make all output to LPT1
from this session go to printer x.  The x is from the MDOS physical
device name, as listed above.