[sudo-discuss] line printer at sudoroom!

I brought in a Panasonic KX-P2180 Dot Matrix printer a while ago, and someone found some tractor-feed paper for it. I want to use it to print lines from IRC when someone says 12:34 < jerkey> !print 12:33 < sudobot> DOOR EVENT: RichardStallman swiped into the building the printer will actually print that line onto the paper and advance one line like a typewriter. this is what a dor-matrix printer looks like in action: (ours will be printing lines of text, not graphics) https://youtu.be/qlEUrEVqDbo?t=28 so i got a USB to parallel converter, and i plugged it into the desktop computer next to the 3D printer. It comes up as /dev/usb/lp0 because of kernel module usblp, which sees the hardware and makes that device. If i become root, i can do echo "hello world" > /dev/usb/lp0 and it will print "hello world" to the paper, and advance to the next line. this works a couple of times, but then the printer stops printing, and then the command doesn't exit, until you press a button on the printer and then it prints SOME of what you sent it, and you have to press the button again and again... it makes no fucking sense. I experienced this in the past too, playing with the same kind of printer, probably under DOS, and I never figured out what the fuck was wrong. any ideas? the printer is still set up on the desk if you want to play with it. -jake