Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!natinst!rpp386!woody
From: woody@rpp386.cactus.org (Woodrow Baker)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript
Subject: Re: Adobe PPD files
Summary: ppd and stuff
Message-ID: <17380@rpp386.cactus.org>
Date: 29 Nov 89 12:56:37 GMT
References: <1025@maxim.erbe.se>
Organization: River Parishes Programming, Plano, TX
Lines: 54

In article <1025@maxim.erbe.se>, prc@erbe.se (Robert Claeson) writes:
> I have a few questions regarding Adobe's PPD (Postscript Printer Description)
> files.
> 
> 1. If I change the password in the printer, how should I record it in
>    the PPD file? Adobe suggests me not to change any piece of the
>    information in the PPD file. Should this suggestion be followed
>    for the exitserver password also?
> 
> 2. If I want to have a spooler (suppose I'm writing my own) make use
>    of the various emulations available in most Postscript printers,
>    such as HP Laserjet+, Diablo 630 and HP-GL, how should I add that
>    information to the PPD files? Is it even "legal" to extend the PPD
>    files in this way?
> 
> I hope that someone would be willing to respond to these questions.
> 
> -- 
>           Robert Claeson      E-mail: rclaeson@erbe.se
> 	  ERBE DATA AB

DON'T change the serverdict password.  If for some reason you forget it,
you will have to send the controller off to get it recovered.  Secondly,
may aplications depend on server password to be the default of 0 and will
flat out fail.  Thirdly, Adobe in thier infinite wisdom decided not to document
the proceedure for accessing the emulatons from within postscript.  Depending
on the machine.  Some machines have    setsoftwareiomode and sethardwareiomode
commands that allow this.  Older machines don't.  I have worked all that out
for QMS-ps810's and The Laser Connection sells a piece of code called PSexecutive
that does it nicely, based on the information that I sold them.  Drop me
a note as to which laser printer you have, and I'll see if I can help you.
basically, if you use the laserprinter in interactive (rs-232) postscript mode
you can do this:

connect your favorite computer and communication program up to the laser using
the db25 connection.  type in    executive  <return< in lowercase (<return<
means hit the return key.  You should see the PS> prompt.
then type in
serverdict begin statusdict begin <return<
/statusdict load {== ==} forall <return<

you will get a dump of the internal statusdict entries.  Capture this 
to disk.  Do the same for  /serverdict and /$printerdict.  You can
look at this.  There is a proceedure called switch or something like that
that handles the changing of emulation modes when the switch is flipped on the
side.  I think that you'll also find one that invokes the emulations:

serverdict begin hplj <return<  or hpgl <return< usually does it, but you need
to look at your serverdict and statusdict dumps to see how your machine does it.
simply copy it.....

Cheers

Woody