wjw@ebf.eb.ele.tue.nl (Willem Jan Withagen) (03/27/91)
In article <1991Mar26.192957.1@imecom.imec.be> elsen@imec.be writes:
=>
=> Could someone mail me an example printcap entry for
=> an HP LaserjetII P printer connected to the serial line
=> of an Apollo 3000 workstation running SR10.2?
=>
=> The printer also has an optional "Laserjet Poscript" cartridge
=> installed.
=>
I've got the same sort of problem. Until recently we ran and HP II
just in plain PCL mode. For this we used Dave Funk's PD drivers.
Then we added a postscript emulation cartridge and that's were
the real misery started.
The problem as more to do with the postscript cartridge than with
running Apollo's.
Problem description:
When running files of a queue, which are mixed postscript
and PCL there have to be switches from PS <-> PCL.
Our Pacific PSE can do that. The problem is that after
the switch the buffer is flushed, and it have contained
part of the next file to print.
This results in very wrong printing, to say the least.
Real fix:
Block the traffic to the printer after a switch, until it
has switched. The problem is that a PS page could take
days to print, so doing this on the computer side does not
really compute.
It has to be done from the printer side, which would mean
a change to the Emulation software.
It hs to block input upon reception of a switch sequence,
or not kill the buffer when switching.
Current solution:
We only run PS.
Question:
- Does anybody know a cartridge which does this right?
Other questions:
- Has anybody got good PS-filters:
to generate a header.
to flush the printer after it sort of hangs,
because someone send a wrong job.
Thanx,
Willem jan Withagen.
Eindhoven University of Technology DomainName: wjw@eb.ele.tue.nl
Digital Systems Group, Room EH 10.10
P.O. 513 Tel: +31-40-473401
5600 MB Eindhoven The Netherlandswieland@ea.ecn.purdue.edu (Jeffrey J Wieland) (03/29/91)
In article <1118@eba.eb.ele.tue.nl> wjw@ebf.eb.ele.tue.nl (Willem Jan Withagen) writes: > >Then we added a postscript emulation cartridge and that's were >the real misery started. > >The problem as more to do with the postscript cartridge than with >running Apollo's. > >Problem description: > When running files of a queue, which are mixed postscript > and PCL there have to be switches from PS <-> PCL. ... > > This results in very wrong printing, to say the least. > >Real fix: > Block the traffic to the printer after a switch, until it > has switched. The problem is that a PS page could take > days to print, so doing this on the computer side does not > really compute. We are using a Laserjet II with the Adobe cartridge, driving it from an AT&T 3B2/500. We also wanted to be able to switch modes. What I do is after each postscript print job, wait until the printer returns the "idle" message to a status request (^T). After that, it is safe to switch modes. You may be able to do the same thing with the Pacific Data cartridge. When we switch from PCL to PS, the spooler waits until it gets the "Idle" messeage before sending the files to be printed. We can't do the same thing for switching the other way, so instead it sleeps for 50 seconds when switching from PS to PCL. This is System V machine -- what we are doing won't work for your spooler -- but, perhaps it will point you in the right direction. -- Jeff Wieland wieland@acn.purdue.edu