Epic 880TM Programmers Notes
100-88002 Rev B Page 241
General Notes When the serial port is used, it is important that the output lines from the printer not be
shorted or back driven. If the signals are not to be used, they should be left open.
The best time to configure the printer from the host using remote configuration is
during system setup or software update.
Deciding what drivers are needed can be confusing. This section is included to make
that process easier.
Definitions
First, a few definitions:
OS - Operating System.
Types of OS’s are: Windows (9x/Me/4.0/2000), Linux, Unix, OS2, ...
Application - A software program that a person uses to do something (i.e. a POS
application)
Program - Program and Application are used interchangeably.
Driver - software that makes hardware do something (i.e. something useful, we hope).
A driver translates (or converts) a software command to a command that specific
hardware can understand.
Types of drivers: Printer driver, Port driver, OPOS driver, USB driver...
OCX/ActiveX - a software component that utilizes Microsoft’s OLE (Object linking and
embedding).
API - Application Programming Interface. In the generic sense “The API” refers to the
Windows Operating system API.
Types of API’s: Windows API, Visual Basic API, Delphi API, MFC API
Do you want to use the standard USB printing device interface?
The printer can be configured to present itself as a standard printer class device. This
interface is specified by the USB standards committee and is documented as the
USB
Device Class Definition for Printing Devices.
Go to www.usb.org and search for this
title or use the following link:
http://www.usb.org/developers/devclass_docs/usbprint11.pdf