Interesting.. We have a Xerox4220 laser printer which emulates a
     laserjetIV. I had the same problem with the JetDirect EX's. I turned
     off the two-way (bitronics) communication on the 4220 and the problem
     went away.
 
        Very interesting.
 
 
______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: Re: C30D not supported with JetDirect/EX
Author:  Gavin Scott <[log in to unmask]> at HMS-Internet
Date:    4/4/95 11:28 AM
 
 
Rich Corn wrote:
> While researching some strange behavior of a JetDirect EX network
> printer interface running an HP C30D printer, I contacted the
> HP Periperials Developer Support Group in Boise. An engineer there
> listened to my problem (see below) and then told me in no uncertain
> terms that the Jet Direct EX is only supported (by it's maker, the
> Peripherals Group) with LaserJet printers and the C30D is NOT a
> LaserJet. Therefore the currently recommended use of the Jet Direct
> EX with the C30D by the C30D people in CA is not supported by the
> makers of the JetDirect EX.
>
> Any HP people care to comment?  Anyone else?
 
At Quest, we were a (the? :-)) beta test site for the C30 printer,
specifically because HP wanted to make sure that NBSPOOL would support
writing to it via a JetDirect EX box, which we tested and it seemed
to work fine, at least for the testing we did.
 
It's interesting that about half of the HP literature that
describes the JetDirect EX box says that it only supports LaserJets,
and the other half says that it will work with any parallel printer.
 
> The actual technical problem relates to the bitronic parallel
> interface between the EX and the printer. Since the C30D uses
> a centronics interface, the JD EX determines that the C30D is
> NOT a Laserjet and handles it in a different fashion. In this
> case, when the C30D goes off-line, paper-out or etc, the JD EX
> starts the idle timer (default 90 sec) and if the problem is
> not cleared when the timer runs out, the JD EX drops the
> connection to the host (HP3000 in this case). With a LaserJet,
> the JD EX simply paces the host (like X-off) and waits for the
> condition to clear and then resumes transfer of data from the
> host.
 
Ahhhhhhh!!!!!! Halleluja! I've been trying to get out of HP for
ages an answer to why the !@#$%^& JetDirect EX boxen seem to
behave in this way. At Quest, we have had no end of problems
with the darn things. Even *with* a LaserJet hooked up to it,
I have to say that I consider the JetDirect EX box to be
PURE UNSTOPPABLE EVIL FROM THE 8TH DIMENSION, and really suggest
that if you have some alternative, avoid the darn things. God
help you if it is not a LaserJet you are trying to use them with.
 
The implementation of TCP/IP in the JetDirect EX, and the way it
handles the parallel interface, seem to be completely brain damaged.
Hopefully HP will fix the darn things one of these days.
 
In the mean time, if you setup the host that BOOTPs the JetDirect
EX box to also TFTP a config file to it, you can increase/disable
the timeout value so that it will wait as long as is required for
the printer to become ready again.
 
G.