ras@sgfa.ssd.ray.com (Ralph A. Shaw) (08/11/90)
We've been having quite a bit of difficulty and runarounds from Interleaf, specifically when using Imagen printers (which are listed as supported in their documentation). I wonder if others have had these problems, or created any work-arounds that might be of use until Interleaf comes up with a viable solution. We have been using Interleaf TPS for the past few years on Sun2 and (more recently) Sun3 workstations, in conjunction with QMS/Imagen laser printers (2308 and 3320), (CX printers, to Interleaf). When using Interleaf 3.0.X on our older Sun2's, we would routinely loose jobs that were printed, especially if the printers were being used via the normal BSD spooler. Recently, we find the same behavior on our new Sun3 systems running Interleaf's 4.0.65 release. It looks as though the Interleaf-supplied "eicat" program (to talk to the Imagens via Ethernet TCP/IP) does not retry if the printer is busy or offline, so the jobs just go away. Dedicating an Imagen to each Interleaf user is out of the question. (If we had the source to this program, it would be a trivial fix). Interleaf Support's (predictable) answer after two months is that there is a special Interleaf->Imagen support software that is to be used instead of the normal Interleaf->Imagen support software that: (a) fixes this problem, and (b) costs a meager $2500.00 in addition to the $15,000 for full TPS. There's gotta be a better way! Any ideas, (besides Framemaker, that is)? -- Ralph Shaw, ras@quahog.ssd.ray.com Raytheon Co, Submarine Signal Division., Portsmouth, RI 02871