The "HP Extra!" insert to the February 1995 HP Advisor, HP3000
Edition, contains an article by Dave Wilde, a product manager in
CSY, about system printers after the demise of HP-IB.
 
Some points from the article:
 
- only the HP5000 F-series printers are currently available with
  a SCSI interface;
 
- since HP2680 printers support only HP-IB, they can not be
  connected to the 9x9KS systems;
 
- older 256x model A & B printers can be converted to serial, but
  not to LAN (as an aside, last summer, the price was > $1000 per
  printer to convert these older printers to serial);
 
- the article presents a table of suggested baud rates for serial
  printers;
 
- serial is not as robust as HP-IB (this has already been
  discussed on this list and in HP Professional);
 
- HP's spooler does not support LAN printers (a number of
  3rd-parties plus Netware/iX do);
 
- "HP is investigating" whether to offer a "HP-supported solution
  for printing to LAN-attached printers directly from the HP3000
  spooler" (note: this backs away from comments made at Interex
  '94 in Denver); and,
 
- a document on spooler recovery for serial attached printers
  (ID# 32615) is available via the HP First faxback service
  (800-333-1917).
 
Some comments from my experience in converting from HP-IB to
serial printing and from my reading of Dave Wilde's article:
 
- you will not be satisfied with the recovery capability of
  serial in comparison to that of HP-IB;
 
- if your only option is serial, become very familiar with the
  SPSAVE option of SPOOLF, as well as those hints given in the
  above mentioned HP First document;
 
- don't hold your breath for a LAN-printing solution from HP;
  and,
 
- we still need someone to compare the robustness of recovery of
  SCSI-attached printers and LAN-attached printers to our old
  familiar, and highly reliable, HP-IB -attached printers (any
  HP-ers lurking who would like to take a shot at this?). If they
  are no better than serial, then it seems we are taking a giant
  step backwards.
 
 
 
John Burke
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