fitz@CIVE.RI.CMU.EDU.UUCP (11/21/87)
I just installed Multifinder on my SE last week and decided to
try the background printing. Lo and behold it requires updating
the printing drivers to version 5.0. This must be the weekly
update for printer drivers again. Does Apple realize what kind
of pain this causes? Am I asking too much by thinking that it
would be smart to allow Macs running Multifinder and Macs running
5.5/4.1 to cohabitate on the same network? Since I administer my
network I can upgrade everyone's Laserwriter drivers, but what
about the people that share an AppleTalk network with other groups?
I just feel that Apple takes the easy way out quite often and that
a little foresight required to make the 4.0 LaserWriter files compatible
with background printing would have been the smart move.
wonder what will need to be upgraded next week........
Kerien Fitzpatrick
Field Robotics Center
The Robotics Institute
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
(412)268-6564
Arpanet: fitz@cive.ri.cmu.edu
Disclaimer: all my opinions are my own, because noone else is paying
attention.
"hindsight is great, tomorrow I'll turn around and see what's coming..."cmccabe@cdp.UUCP (11/30/87)
From: CMCCabe at PeaceNet: Yes, you need to upgrade all of your Laserwriter drivers on your system to 5.0 in order to make background printing work. You also need to be running Multifinder to engage background printing. Of course, you need not install MF on all of the machines, in case (god forbid) you still have lowly 1 meg machines. Just install the Laserwriter Drivers, and you'll be in fat city. Charles McCabe In-house Support ComputerWare Palo Alto, CA ******************* all opinions, they are mine! *******************
espen@well.UUCP (Peter Espen) (12/05/87)
At my place of work we have four people on AppleTalk all printing to one LaserWriter. If we have all upgraded to the new Apple system software, can we each print to the LaserWriter in the background without conflicting with each other or causing other problems when using backgrounder under MF? espen@well
korn@apple.UUCP (Peter "Arrgh" Korn) (12/06/87)
In article <4629@well.UUCP> espen@well.UUCP (Peter Espen) writes: > > At my place of work we have four people on AppleTalk all printing >to one LaserWriter. If we have all upgraded to the new Apple system software, >can we each print to the LaserWriter in the background without conflicting >with each other or causing other problems when using backgrounder under MF? First off, if one of the four upgrade to the new software, *all* of you must upgrade to the new software. The latest system release (System Disk 5.0) contains a new version of the LaserWriter driver, version 5.0. If you have someone on your network printing with 5.0 and someone else printing with a different version (4.0, say), you will get into LaserWars(tm). LaserWars are when different people are constantly reinitializing the LaserWriter with different versions of the Laser Prep file, making for lots of wasted time, and just general annoyance. So on that score, everyone should be running the same release of the System, whatever it may be. As to background printing, it makes no difference as to who is printing in the background, and who is printing in the foreground. Background printing takes a little more time, but is basically transparent to anything else that is going on on that machine, and is highly recommended. Unless your machines are very tight for memory or disk space, background printing will probably be the way everyone will want to go; though there is no reason that someone cannot print in the foreground if others are printing in the background. When a machine prints in the background, in reality the background laser driver is used, and the postscript file is spooled off to disk into a special folder in your system folder. Then, a program that is constantly running and taking up some very small amount of RAM notices that there is a file in that folder, and fires up Print Monitor, the background printing program (if there is memory to do so; otherwise it informs you that there isn't the RAM to run Print Monitor right now, and it will try again later). Print Monitor then checks and sees if the LaserWriter is busy, and if not it prints; if so, it gets in the queue and when it's turn comes around, it prints. Meanhwhile the Macintosh is free to run others apps as RAM permits. In addition to foreground/background printing, another printing option is available: having a macintosh do print spooling. With background printing via Print Monitor the need for a special printer spooler isn't as great, though still quite useful. Especially in a larger network, having a dedicated macintosh that spools to the printer (perhaps in addition to being a network file server) can speed up printing by a fair margin, even with background printing. I find that I get my output appreciably faster if I print in the foreground to LaserShare, Apple's network print spooling program. While I haven't used any of the others, like network SuperLaserSpool from SuperMac technologies, I'd expect similar speed improvements there as well. If you are in the market for a network spooler, I'd look at one that works in conjunction with a network file server. Typically, most places that find that they use their printers often enough to benefit from a network print spooler are also large enough to benefit from a network file server. And if the two services can be combine on on machine, so much the better. Peter -- Peter "Arrgh" Korn korn@apple.com !hplabs!amdahl!apple!korn "Hi mom!"
shap@sfsup.UUCP (J.S.Shapiro) (12/07/87)
In article <6910@apple.UUCP>, korn@apple.UUCP writes: [ long discussion about spooling elided ] > ... While I haven't used any of the others, like network SuperLaserSpool > from SuperMac technologies, I'd expect similar speed improvements there as > well... > Peter "Arrgh" Korn korn@apple.com !hplabs!amdahl!apple!korn "Hi mom!" Well, Peter, it's a nice theory, but SuperLaserSpool is one of the applications that is broken under Multifinder. Imagine my upset when I discovered this particular marvel after shelling out my $175 (or whatever it was) recently. The foks at SuperMac promise an upgrade Real Soon Now (and the check is in the mail...) Frankly, I would much prefer to see a background printing ImageWriter driver put out by Apple... Jon