I finally got the damn device driver and print symbiont working for the
color printer. I can't recommend writing VMS device drivers and symbionts
as a recreational activity.

Anyhow, it's quite simple to use. You might want to define a word to
short cut it even further:

	$ PRINT/QUE=TEK filename.type

The system will assume a .LIS filetype (sorry, can't make it not do that) and
Dave Theurer's TEK writer program(s) create files with null filetypes so you
will typically have to suffix a period (.) to your filename. 

The only qualifiers on the print command that do anything are the
/QUE and /NOTIFY. All the others (such as /HEAD/FLAG/BURST etc)
are accepted but ignored.

If you use /NOTIFY, the system will beep your terminal when it has finished
sending the file to the printer but before the printer has imaged and 
printed your picture (it'll probably be done doing those by the
time you get to the printer room). If there's an error either in the file
or with the transfer of the file to the printer or with the printer itself
you will be notified ONLY if you use the /NOTIFY switch on the PRINT
command. If you don't use /NOTIFY and there is an error, the system will
not tell you and it will simply toss your picture into the bit bucket.
I recommend you always use /NOTIFY.

There are 3 errors that may be reported:

1)	%SYSTEM-F-DEVOFFLINE, Device not available...

which means the printer is not plugged in and/or turned on.

2)	%RMS-F-ILLREC, Illegal record type

which means the file preamble is incorrect. See Dave Theurer if you get
this error. The Tektronix printer requires a specially formatted file
with several thousand bytes of information about how to format the picture,
how the colors are defined etc. You can only print files that have been
correctly formatted. If there is an error in the format, the system
will return this error.

3)	%SYSTEM-F-DEVCMDERR, Device command error

which means the printer generated a fault condition. This may be due to
bad data in the file, various timeouts or the printer ran out of paper
or ribbon.

There may be a bunch of other errors generated by the job controller,
symbiont routines, run time library and others that just haven't popped 
up yet. If you get any of these, let me know.

Now a word about the printer. The Tektronix printer appeared to be the
best of all the color printers that were available within a $10k
budget. It still appears that way, however, it does require some TLC.
I believe you may need to clean the heads after printing around a dozen
pages or so. The cleaning procedure is very easy, not the least bit
messy, takes only about 30 seconds and can make all the difference in
the world on the clarity of your print. If your picture appears a little
fuzzy or has blotches in it, then the heads need cleaning. Come see me
if you want to learn how to clean it. We haven't measured it yet, but
have been told that it costs about 35 cents to print a picture. So please
be reasonable about how many pictures you print.

ds