TOM@PENNDRLS.BITNET ("Thomas D. Denier") (01/17/91)
We are currently supporting a number of PostScript laser printers by means of 3270 to Centronix protocol converters. PostScript printers are designed to use a two-way communications path. We are discovering that it is extremely awkward to make do with an output-only communications path. There seems to be no really good way to do accounting without two-way communications. We think two-way communications would also facilitate keeping track of downloaded fonts and would make problem determination easier in some cases. We have several kinds of interfaces on our VM/XA SP 2.1 system that offer at least some hope of supporting two-way communications: 7171s, a 3725 running EP, and IBM TCP/IP with an 8232 (soon to be replaced by a 3172, if IBM ever stops missing scheduled delivery dates for the 3172). All of the PostScript printers we have or are likely to buy in the future have AppleTalk and RS-232C interfaces. Many have RS-422 as well. Can anyone suggest a means of providing fast, reliable, two-way communications to a PostScript printer with one of the interfaces mentioned above? In this context 'fast' means a minimum of several thousand bytes per second. We would prefer an even higher speed; our printers are generally rated at twenty pages per minute or above, and a significant part of our workload consists of dense graphics. At present an Ethernet to AppleTalk gateway strikes us as the most promising possibility.