Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uunet!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 passwords
Message-ID: <17391@rpp386.cactus.org>
Date: 1 Dec 89 15:32:04 GMT
References: <1025@maxim.erbe.se> <17380@rpp386.cactus.org> <1989Nov30.171926.7946@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: River Parishes Programming, Plano, TX
Lines: 43

In article <1989Nov30.171926.7946@utzoo.uucp>, henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
> In article <17380@rpp386.cactus.org> woody@rpp386.cactus.org (Woodrow Baker) writes:
> >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. ...
> 
> In a shared environment, this is a feature, not a bug.  We *want* those
> applications to fail; we do not want them messing with persistent
> characteristics of the printer.  They have no damn business doing so anyway.
> -- 
> Mars can wait:  we've barely   |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
> started exploring the Moon.    | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

I have to disagree with you.  Applications do have to do that.  Messing with
persistant paramenters is not the issue here.  Any program that downloads a
preamble and a resident portion has to exit to the server.  Examples, Microsoft
word, Pagemaker, Ps executive, my Epson emulator, Diablo emulator, All of 
Cassidy and Greenes fonts, and many others.  The situation is that many of
these things have to install utility routines to be used by more than one
application.  For example, you have a problem like the one that certain
Dual bin QMS printers had.  HPLASERJET emulation mode didn't recognize dual
trays.  You could not switch emulations etc.etc.  The PS-executive handles
these by downloading some printer patches that have to be persistant.  The
MS word driver then was altered to know about them.  PS-exec assumes the
password to be 0. The code is not held in a file.  It is printed from within
a program.  It's not super easy to change.  The second real problem, is that
with most of the Apple printers, and nearly all of the other older printers
if you forget the server password, you are out of luck.  You have to remove
the logic board, and send it in to Apple, or the manufacturer to get it
corrected.  this costs lots of time and cash....On certain printers like
the QMS, the battery-backed (vs EPROM) chip is socketed, and can be removed.
BUT, you still have to have someway to wipe the password out of the chip and
Adobe, in thier "infinite wisdom" won't tell you where in the thing it is 
stored. Just wiping the entire contents out is not good either.  You wipe
the calibration data out, such as the compensation for the hardware margins,
the pagecount, etc, etc.  I never claimed that this was a bug, just a severe
pain in the "btt" for people.  Again, DON'T change the password, it could
cost you far more than it is worth..

Cheers

Woody.