Re: hp4000 printers

[Albert Kinderman]

In my case, I was talking about a "sneaker net."  I take a floppy
downstairs to the secretary's computer and "print" the lout produced ps
file using the dos command

copy /b file.ps > prn 

to the local printer connected to the parallel port.

The file, all 65 pages, prints correctly; the only problem is that one
extra page is produced with the word TIMEOUT in very large type.  The
printer doesn't timeout during the job; just the word is printed on one
page following the completion of the job.

Al

Peter Samuel wrote:
> 
> On Thu, 4 Feb 1999 address@hidden wrote:
> 
> >
> >
> > > My limited experience is that files print without anything extra when
> > > printed through gsview and ghostscript.  However, when I create a 
> > > postscript
> > > file (65 page "book") with lout and then print it downstairs on the
> > > secretary's HP4M (postscript) printer by using a copy command from a dos
> > > prompt, the last page is an extra page with a large TIMEOUT printed on it.
> > > Your experiences may differ in how you get the file to the printer.
> >
> > I get the same thing on an HP 4MP (being driven by bsd/os). Also, if I send
> > two copies of the lout output to it at once they both print fine, and then 
> > the
> > TIMEOUT page shows up only after the second one has printed. I have no 
> > answer
> > to why....
> 
> Are these network connected printers or are the connected so some
> other box via the parallel interface? If the printer itself is
> connected to the network, the TCP/IP stack inside the printer should
> handle and delays in receiving packets (providing they don't
> completely exceed the TCP/IP timeout value). However, if the printer
> is receiving data from its parallel port it may timeout sooner.
> 
> This is purely conjecture on my part, but my guess is that (from the
> printer's point of view) a TCP/IP connection is more robust because the
> printer knows where the information is coming from and can afford to
> maintain the connection for longer because it knows it can determine
> when the connection officially begins and ends.
> 
> Whereas a parallel port has no idea of when a connection begins and
> ends as there are no packet headers identifying the connection as
> such.
> 
> Regards
> Peter
> ----------
> Peter Samuel                                address@hidden
> Technical Consultant                        or at present:
> Uniq Professional Services,                 address@hidden
> a division of X-Direct Pty Ltd
> Phone: +61 2 9206 3410                      Fax: +61 2 9281 1301
> 
> "If you kill all your unhappy customers, you'll only have happy ones left"

-- 
Albert Kinderman                           California State University,
Northridge
address@hidden             Department of Management Science