Conference star::wizards

1840.0. "Open: printing in a very heterogenous environment" by STAR::JKEENAN () Mon May 05 1997 14:23

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Subject: Ask the Wizard: 'fr@ep-ka.de'
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Name: Andreas Freiherr
Email Address: fr@ep-ka.de
CPU Architecture: VAX and Alpha
Version: V 6.2
Questions:

Dear collegue (I am the local OpenVMS wizard here ;-),

my question is about printing in a very heterogenous
environment. We have a VMScluster and a bunch of Unix
machines, sharing a number of HP LaserJet printers that
are connected directly to the Ethernet. All print jobs are
transferred using the LPD protocol, in the case of VMS
using DEC/TCP IP Services for OpenVMS.

Everything seems fine, but I cannot, for example, use the
PRINT command from VMS Mail because the printers only eat
Postscript, and there is nobody between Mail and the
printer to translate ASCII to Postscript. The solution I
dream of would work seamless like a2ps used as a filter in
a Unix print queue. Very close to this dream is DCPS, but
this symbiont cannot speak LPD to the printer, and I am
definitely _not_ going to connect the printers to a serial
port instead of to the network. What I need to make my
dream come true is merely a file that would be called
DCPS$BE_LPD.EXE in SYS$LIBRARY, but at least the available
versions of DCPS do not seem to have this functionality.

Will there be such an image some day? - What can I do in
the meantime? - Write one myself? - I'd love to, but then
I need the specs: what entries should be there, what
should the functions do, what parameters should they take?
Would you like to have the code to include it in DCPS V1.4
or so?

advTHANKSance for your help!
Andreas

P.S.: Releasing the specs might prove (again) that the
"Open" in OpenVMS is not just a word... :-)

   DCPS is the appropriate Postscript symbiont package for OpenVMS,
   and DCPS expects bi-directional communications with the printer,
   and this is a feature not supported by the LPR/LPD protocol.

   Some direct-connection interfaces for printers also support the
   LAT protocol and, assuming the vendor's current LAT firmware is
   resident in the interface, DCPS can interoperate with these 
   printers via LAT.  Also available are the LATprint and DECserver
   devices, widgets that allows LAT access to the printer, via a
   serial line connection.

   The conversion of ASCII text into Postscript is not a particularly
   difficult task, and packages such as Ghostscript may be of interest.
   The other option involves the particular printer -- many recent
   printers can auto-detect the data format, and react appropriately.

   A V1.4 release of DCPS V1.4 is not available.