Dear Bruker Users,
... or more specifically, AC users. We have an AC200 with a sample changer
on open access. It eats work and keeps the entire NMR service solvent. It's
easily capable of 1200 jobs per month, and everybody, UGs, PGs and PDs all
use it. All the spectra are plotted using a HP5100 laser printer, which is
fine until the paper runs out in the middle of the night.
I suppose I could buy a bigger paper tray, 500 sheets say. Or I could beat
myself into checking the paper every night when I went home - but I know
I'm not too good at such regular tasks (I forget to take the blood pressure
tablets sometimes...).
What I'd like is a print buffer. Now, I know that DISNMR has a built-in
print queue system (PQ and various other commands) but it's not reliable
under heavy use and can lock the whole machine up - I've tried it and it's
a pain. The data is archived of course, but the kids hate plotting their
own spectra and quite frankly they make a mess of it compared to the what
the spectrometer does. (I know, I spoil them)
The printer has megabytes of memory that's actually quite easily expanded,
but it insists on using it only to fiddle with postscript - which of
course, it never gets. I'd love to reconfigure that as a buffer, but the
manual does not reveal how that can be done. It seems to keep just enough
memory to buffer one spectrum (ca 150Kb).
I remember from some years back that you could buy stand-alone print
buffers. They went between the cable end and the printer parallel socket
and simply stored incoming data, if the printer was in no fit state to
print. They seem to be like hen's teeth nowadays, presumably because
computers all have proper print queue systems.
Has anyone got a solution to this problem?
("Chuck it out and buy a new machine" is not really what I'm looking for)
Alan
--•--------------------------------------------------• Dr A.S.F.Boyd Chemistry Department NMR Spectroscopist Heriot-Watt University phone: +44-131-451 3214 Riccarton fax: +44-131-451 3180 Edinburgh email: a.s.f.boyd@hw.ac.uk EH14 4AS http://dava.eps.hw.ac.uk/ Scotland •------------------------------------Made on a Mac-• This message represents the official view of the voices in my head
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