Hi Gopi,
Thank you for responding to Rick Ingham's message.  As Rick said, we have
over 100 sites that rely on "hot" printers.  These hot printers are used
for printing multiple pre-printed forms on impact printers (such as the
HP2934).  Because they are hot, and not spooled devices, our application
software can restrict access to the printer so that the form may be
aligned
and the report may print without interruption from other spoolfiles.

At first glance, it would appear that the solution is trivial: just
hardcode
each report application with the escape sequences that reside in the
environment
files.  However, due to design constraints, this will not work for us;
plus, it
defeats the original design and purpose of using enviroment files.

Our options/workarounds are not attractive:

  o  Dedicate a printer for each preprinted form ($$$).
  o  Rewrite our software so that it can read and utilize environment
files,
     thereby duplicating the original MPE5.0 functionality with our own
code.
  o  Spool the printers instead of running hot, which would cause mayhem
     and many wasted pre-printed forms.

What can we do to get HP to fix this?  Everyone knows that it broke with
5.5.
Why can't this be repaired?  Perhaps generating one SR for each of our
sites
would get someone's attention? ;)  Your comments are appreciated.

Best regards,
Steve
-------------------------------------------
Steve Donnelly
Expeditors International - Corp MIS Support
tel:   206.246.3711  ext.234
email: [log in to unmask]

~~~ Original Messages ~~~

Date:    Tue, 21 Oct 1997 19:01:38 -0700
From:    M Gopalakrishnan <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: 5.5 Env. Files broken on Hot Devices
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Hi Rick,

  We like to understand more about your env files problem. Please
  provide your email address to us to discuss more on the problem.
  (Your email id got dropped in the posting!).

  Yes, you are right in saying that we have only one site reported
  this problem and addl reports from other sites also would help us
  to decide the priority.

regards,

Gopi
CSY R&D India

Rick Ingham wrote:
> WE discovered, after updating a few of out 110+ systems from 5.0 to
5.5,
> that environment files no longer work with hot printer devices.  We use
> these hot devices extensively for printing forms through our own
printer
> control system for printing multiple forms on a given printer.
>
> HP claims they have only had one other complaint on the topic from
about a
> year ago.  They don't plan to fix it any time soon.  Personally, I
don't
> feel like re-inventing printer drivers that should be, and was, an
operating
> system function.
>
> If anyone else feels they would be adversely effected by this broken
> feature, please make HP aware that more systems will be influenced.
>
> HP's track record over the last couple of years for responding to
broken
> parts of the operating system, Image, and Allbase has really damaged
our
> confidence in HP's ability to maintain stable operating and database
> systems.
>
> End of rant.