You are not going wrong. It is HP that is going wrong. There is no good
reason why JetDirect boxes/cards and PCL printers are necessary. In
fact, as Joshua Johnson noted 4/30/98:

<--snip-->

There is an undocumented feature of 5.5 printing that I was able to find
out about because I use network printing to print to a Laserjet printer
through an Intel NETXPORT print server box. Here is what you do:

In the NPCONFIG.PUB.SYS file add this line to the dev that you want to
turn off snmp to.

snmp_enabled=FALSE

example:

3000 (network_address=???.???.???.???
      TCP_port_number=3001
      snmp_enabled=FALSE)

<--snip-->

I can add a little bit to Joshua's tip: If you have a NETXPORT box with
one serial port and two parallel ports, the port number for the serial
port is 2501 and the parallel ports are 3001 and 3002. Works fine for
us.

We too would like to use non-PCL printers; however, as far as the PCL
requirement is concerned, I do not know of any (even undocumented) way
to overcome this. Which is just plain abstinence on HP's part because
all the spooler does is send some very short pcl string at the beginning
and an equally short pcl string at the end of each spool file.
[Old-timers will recall that until the early '80s you could only spool
"HP" printers serially off an HP3000. Deja vu anyone?]

And, before anyone jumps all over me, yes there are several good third
party packages that will let you print through and to just about
anything (and you will probably hear from most of the vendors). We have
one. But, none of them can be as neat and clean as MPE network printing
because they have to be bolted on rather than integrated into the
spooler.

John Burke
e-mail: [log in to unmask]



-----Original Message-----
From: David Randall [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday, July 29, 1998 12:10 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: TCP printing to non HP devices


I just know some of you luminaries will know the answer to this one...

We have remote site with a network link (TCP/IP) and a need to supply
them
with a spooled device from our 957 running MPE/iX 5.5 Express 4. We
initially purchased an Intel print server with a serial port (we had a
serial printer we wanted to use) but it would not play. HP advised that
it
was down to the SNMP implementation on the device not returning a value
for
a particular variable - you had to use an HP Jetdirect box. So now we
are
trying an HP Jet Direct box with an old Epson impact printer... it will
not
play - HP now say PCL only we have confirmed all is ok on a Deskjet 820
and
a RuggedWriter but nothing else.

Can someone out there give me some pointers or references to where we
are
going wrong - my multi vendor cheap and cheerful solution has become
single
vendor potentially pricey solution,

Thanks in advance.

--
David Randall, IT Manager, Healthcall Services Limited
401 South Row, Milton Keynes, Bucks.. MK9 2PH
http:\\www.healthcall.co.uk
Voice +1908 691919 Fax : +1908 690169
<mailto:\\[log in to unmask]>