Doug Werth writes:

> Now if we could just get the spooler to keep up with the latest PJL of the
>  newer printers this would be a very powerful setup.

Let me add my wholehearted endorsements of Doug's comments.

At the recent HP World CSY Management Roundtable, this subject was brought up
again. The response from the majority of the folks on the dais was the only
time in the last few years that management's response has truly made me
angry. The mumbo-jumbo given in response to this same comment was a mumbled
excuse that "HP doesn't want to compete with its third-party suppliers."

In fairness, it is entirely possible that no one on the dais understands the
problem, simply because no one from management actually uses HP printers
connected to an HP3000 on a daily basis.

But there is no competitive issue here. It is merely a bug (or more
accurately, a lack of maintenance) in the HP3000's network spooler software
that is the direct result of the various divisions of HP not talking to each
other. Someone, somewhere, at some distant printer division of HP, has
augmented/altered/enhanced the PJL language used by the newer HP printers --
while no one has done the same for spooler in the HP3000. As a consequence,
when an HP3000 talks to one of these newer devices, you get back all sort of
PJL errors.

I cannot believe that the problems with these new printers are all that hard
to fix. Indeed, the task to correct the software would probably only take a
few days.

The problems with the new printers are not fatal. They're just irritating.
And none of this is nearly up to the quality of the software that you expect
on the HP3000.

Wirt Atmar