Excuse for the possible confusion for not posting the previous thread,
but it was rather lengthy (refer to archives)...

Basic question was Formation environment files to network printers...

Formation was tailored for the serial printer spooler and tweaked for
co-existence with legacy 2680/2688/etc environment files.  For LaserJet
purposes, they have extensions in the ENV files that have the raw PCL to
download fonts, forms overlays, etc to the printer first and then this
section is followed up by traditional spoolfile data.  This works fine
for serial printers and in mixed 2680/2688 plus new LaserJet
environments.  But network printing changed this.

I'm making some generalizations based on our environment, but we have
had problems with Formation environment files and network printers.  We
had problems with an extraneous leading form feed (really nasty with
duplex forms) but the overriding problem was with the "automatic page
eject" a.k.a. "skip through perf" option -- it seems that the serial
printer driver enables skip-thru-perf by default, while network printing
doesn't (could depend on your local printer settings also).  That
problem, plus our extensive use of the COBOL "LINEAGE" clause to
count lines (resulting in no physical form feeds) didn't fit at all with
network printing.  We continue to use a mix of ESPUL print queues for
"fancy" forms - exotic environment files, special setups; and the
standard HP network print queues - standard $STDLIST type LP things.

As things currently stand, ESPUL and FORMATION both provide environment
files, neither of which are really compatible with HP's network printing
environment files.  The converse is also true, the pure PCL environment
files of native network printing don't necessarily fit with the 3rd
parties either.

I have requested several times of ROC (Formation folks) that they
provide an option to generate a 'network printing' friendly environment
file from their traditional files, since the PCL is already there, it
should be fairly trivial.  Haven't asked Rich from ESPUL for this yet
since he has yet his own environment files (which work great Rich,
appreciate the effort) but of course most of them don't work with the
other spoolers.

I know much has been said about "network printing" versus "third party"
options, and I was quoted in a recent HP3000 Newswire on this
thread when I was in a particularly embarassingly foul mood :-)  To
fix that possible misunderstanding, my point intended to be:

* CSY promised "basic network printing", and later locked themselves
  in by dropping support for HP-IB/CIPER printers.  The only supported
  printers on current 3000 systems are the LPS series (page level
  recovery if you're fortunate on the newest offerings) or the more
  traditional LaserJets (page level recovery, or even basic printer
  operation ironically if you have the *older* printers).

* Third-party assistance isn't an issue with our shop.  Even if the HP
  spooler did it's defined job flawlessly, I would not give up either
  of our two packages (Formation/ESPUL).  Both have their benefits.

Complications arise when we "mix and match" as there is no apparent
standard, even within HP (serial versus network).  Serial ENV= files are
TTYP definitions, networked ENV= files are raw PCL, traditional HP2680
ENV= files had proprietary code, Formation ENV= files have extensions
with raw PCL appended with %320 CCTL (much like HP network files, after
you extract the raw PCL), and ESPUL has it's own ENV= support that only
it understands.

We seem to be driving at a unix 'lpr -oraw' solution where you just
write what you want to the spool file, while the HP solutions are
driving us toward a text file with 'certain options'.  Hopefully this
will converge in the near future - if there was truly a 'raw' PCL header
option, the 3rd parties could converge on that format; but for now there
is no choice.  HP's network spooler insists on imposing its
own 'defaults' and straying from compatibility with the serial spooler.

In HP's defense, the pain expressed above is all relative.  If you had a
2680 printer and never used ENV= files, you will have no problems (with
LaserJet 4s or earlier) that are show stoppers; but if you used ENV=
files or have the newfangled printers with internal network cards, best
wishes.

Can we have Larry Byler back for a couple of weeks ?  :-)

Jeff Kell <[log in to unmask]>