[ILUG] CUPS support for Epson Stylus C64 Printer

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Brian Foster (blf at utvinternet.ie):

>  hum...  this does not seem to be case with the EPKowa
>  software I am using?

No reason why we can't both be correct -- just concerning different
packagings of the software.  Thus:

My comments were based on retrieving and unpacking
pips-sc64_63s-2.6.2.tar.gz, the source tarball for Epson's Stylus C64
drivers (i.e., the printer being asked about).  Admittedly, I didn't
look through that tarball's contents very thoroughly:  I pretty much
stopped digging upon finding this sort of stuff in the "Epson Kowa
Public Licence" (file COPYING.KOWA):

> TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION
[...]

  4. You shall treat those parts of the Program that were provided
     to you in executable or object code only as the proprietary
     and confidential information of EPSON KOWA Corporation and its
     Licensor(s).

  5. You may neither reverse engineer, reverse compile, reverse
     assemble nor otherwise attempt to analyse those parts of the
     Program that were provided to you in executable or object code
     only.

But since you ask, the tarball contains a "lib" directory with the
following contents:

-rw-rw-r--    1 505      505           236 Dec 15 01:31 Makefile.am
-rw-rw-r--    1 505      505          5676 Dec 15 01:33 Makefile.in
-rw-r--r--    1 505      505        146084 Dec 15 01:31 libcbt.a
-rw-r--r--    1 505      505        185462 Dec 15 01:31 libdtr.a
-rwxr-xr-x    1 505      505       1829024 Dec 15 01:31 libsc64_63s.so

It seems a fair bet that that's where the "secret sauce" in this case is
kept.

> ...whilst I've never had any reason to re-built it, the source appears
> complete to me; and there are no strange binaries.

Obviously, I have no idea what you have on hand; for all I know, it's
rather likely that Epson are pulling this trick for some models and not
for others (given their generally good reputation for cooperation).  
However, if you want to apply the acid test, try recompiling for, say,
PPC.  ;->

> OTOH, I downloaded the s/w I am using >2 years ago, and my printer is
> a (very!) low end USB model which works just fine with the USB modules
> in my stock SuSE kernel; i.e., my info is rather old and there really
> isn't much of anything (in my case) to wrap ....

Ja, my impression is that inkjet manufacturers typically get that
funny-but-not-amusing attitude only concerning a few models at any given
time.  Presumably, those tend to be some of the ones subject to the
highest levels of price competition, that include some fancy
software-level tricks that are considered trade secrets.