leifa@IFI.UIO.NO (Leif Arne Neset) (03/21/91)
[Message for comp.laser-printers] The new HPIIIsi is available with an ethernet interface. But according to my informations do the ethernet interfaces only support Novell NetWare, 3com 3+open or HP LAN Manager protocols. We are running about 250 unix workstations, mainly DEC and SUN, and we want to connect a number of the IIIsi printers in our network. Connecting them to a serial interface is not a solution because of the low troughput. Does anybody know about any kind of software that can run on one of the unixmachines and that is able to connect to the printers and talk to them with any of the 3 protocols ? I guess there must be other people who have the same needs. Leif Arne Neset leifa@ifi.uio.no Comp.sci. dep. University of Oslo Norway
jrc@hpdmd48.boi.hp.com (Jim Conrad) (03/27/91)
The LAN Manager stack implements an IEEE 802.2 Type II connection over either IEEE 802.3 or 802.5. If you could build a UNIX program that accepted stdin from the spooling system and implemented the 802.2 Type II state machine to send 802.3 frames to the printer, you'd have a cheep and dirty solution. Not every UNIX machine will let you send/receive any 802.3 frame though. Note that the printer's LAN Manager stack does not use EtherNet, it's 802.3 frames. The Novell stack uses either NCP or RPRINTER/SPX over IPX and many, many different link-level frame types. JimC