bin@primate.wisc.edu (Brain in Neutral) (12/18/90)
1) The NeWSprint bundle comes with the software, a SPARCprinter and an interface card. The card goes in an Sbus slot and provides a parallel interface for the printer. But how many printers can go on a SPARCstation (e.g., a SS 2). One per available slot? 2) Can the NeWSprint software be used to produce raster images for printers that are *not* physically connected to the SS? (If not, the utility of this stuff is obviously more limited.) Suppose I have a driver for printer X. One X printer is connected to my SS. That's fine, I can use it. I have another one connected to a VAX. Can I get access to the rasterized image produced by NeWSprint so that I can send it to the VAX for output on that printer? (e.g., using Berkeley lpr protocol.) Paul DuBois dubois@primate.wisc.edu
jms@tardis.tymnet.com (Joe Smith) (01/08/91)
In article <887@brchh104.bnr.ca> bin@primate.wisc.edu (Brain in Neutral) writes: >1) The NeWSprint bundle comes with the software, a SPARCprinter and an > interface card. The card goes in an Sbus slot and provides a parallel > interface for the printer. But how many printers can go on a SPARCstation > (e.g., a SS 2). One per available slot? The glossy from Sun says that the SBus Printer Card has "Dual DMA channel architecture" on a single SBus slot. It has 2 printer ports; one is a bidirectional parallel port for Centronics-compatible printers and digitizers, the other is a dedicated port for the SPARCprinter laser printer. This is a "high speed serial/video" interface. >2) Can the NeWSprint software be used to produce raster images for > printers that are *not* physically connected to the SS? Quoting from the "NeWSprint White Paper" that came from Sun: |When a job is spooled to the imaging software by lpd, a shell script |called npcomm establishes and maintains a connection between the X11/NeWS |server, which acts as the PostScript interpreter, and the printer handler. |... The server creates a representation of each page of the file in one |of several shared memory buffers. The handler begins looking at the same |pages in memory and sends the page description information to the device |driver that creates the desired picture on the printed page. It looks like the handler and the server have to be on the same machine. It's not clear whether the device driver has to be /dev/something on the local machine, or can be a socket to another machine. Joe Smith (408)922-6220 | SMTP: jms@tardis.tymnet.com or jms@gemini.tymnet.com BT Tymnet Tech Services | UUCP: ...!{ames,pyramid}!oliveb!tymix!tardis!jms PO Box 49019, MS-C51 | BIX: smithjoe | CA license plate: "POPJ P," (PDP-10) San Jose, CA 95161-9019 | humorous dislaimer: "My Amiga 3000 speaks for me."