Wirt writes:

-----Original Message-----
From: [log in to unmask] [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Monday, July 24, 2000 12:51 PM
To: [log in to unmask]; [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: serial vs. network printing


Michael writes:

> I have a problem that appears to have started in 6.0.  If I take the same
>  spoolfile and send it to a network connected and serial connected
printer,
>  the printed results are not the same.  Both printers are 4Si and appear
to
>  have the same menu configurations.  When the program has to go to the
next
>  page it doesn't do a top of form.  It counts lines and then advances to
the
>  correct spot on page 2.  The serial connected printer advances 6 extra
lines
>  down the page before printing.
>
>  I believe that the problem is with the network printing.  The laser
printing
>  was developed completely on serial printers on 5.0.  When we introduced
>  network printing on 5.5, nothing changed, serial or network.  However
when
>  we went to 6.0, all of a sudden the network printer was printing the next
>  page 6 lines too high.  Thinking this was a program bug I added 6 lines
to
>  the carriage advance only to find serial printers were now too low.  Any
>  ideas?  I'm on 6.0 PP2.

When I read your note, Michael, I doubted that the problem lies in network
printing, but because network printing is important to us, I ran a very
simple and quick check.

To demonstrate to myself the correctness of my doubts, I just printed the
same output to the same network printer (an HP4000TN) from two identical
918s, one shadowing the other so that the application code is absolutely
identical on both machines. The only difference between the two machines is
that one 918 is on 5.5 PP7 and the other on 6.5.

The application prints straight ASCII and counts lines, as you say your
program does too. The printer mentioned above is specified to be LP on both
devices, so whatever environment file is used by HP to set up the printer
into landscape printing, 132 columns wide, is the environment file that was
transmitted to the printer.

Each 3000 printed 15 pages of detail listings. As I suspected, there was no
difference. The output from the two machines was identical.

Wirt Atmar
-----------------------------------------------------
Well I don't know about that, however Chris Bartram was correct.
Eliminating the extra 6 line advance in the program and then adding to
NPCONFIG the clause "serial_printer_simulation = true" caused the network
and serial printers to both print correctly.

Mike Berkowitz
Guess? Inc.