It seems that those who write the drivers for new printers do a reasonable
job for Intel, apple and Unix OSes.  Maybe even for some of the other
systems out there.  Why can not they add that function for the MPE systems.
Seems we have maybe a problem in the driver interface so that new printers
can be easily added.

-------------------------------------------------
Larry Simonsen                Phone: 801-489-2450
Flowserve Corporation     Fax: 801-491-1750
PO Box 2200                    http://www.Flowserve.com
Springville, UT 84663      e-mail: [log in to unmask]
-------------------------------------------------
All opinions expressed herein are my own and reflect, in no way, those of my
employer.

 -----Original Message-----
From:   Wirt Atmar [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent:   Friday, October 01, 1999 10:47 AM
To:     [log in to unmask]
Subject:        Re: Advice for Line Printer Needed

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