Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!sun-barr!newstop!sun!imagen!mark
From: mark@imagen.UUCP (Mark Peek)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript
Subject: Re: What functionality does one need? (Was "IP over Ethernet to printers")
Summary: Imagen TCP/IP Protocols
Message-ID: <14570@imagen.UUCP>
Date: 9 Jul 90 17:29:31 GMT
References: <6834@umd5.umd.edu>
Organization: Imagen Corp., Santa Clara CA
Lines: 39

In article <6834@umd5.umd.edu>, zben@umd5.umd.edu (Ben Cranston) writes:
> Last time we looked at Imagen's TCP product it was a simple byte pipe, with
> every byte sent being interpreted as Impress and no way to do statue querying
> or out-of-band commands.  This means if your printer runs out of paper it can
> sit there idle all night because the drive software cannot determine WHY it
> is not printing and so cannot inform a human operator of that fact.  In
> tomorrow's world of distributed printing resources we cannot assume the
> printer will be centrally located.

Well, according to my documentation (dated August 1986), Imagen TCP/IP
supports a TCP "simple byte pipe" called TRANSPORT1 for sending data,
a UDP connection for obtaining status called STATUS1 and a UDP based
connection for accounting (both reliable and unreliable) called ACCOUNTING1.

TRANSPORT1 and STATUS1 are seperable or can be used together. The status
that is available through STATUS1 include:
   - Engine not ready
   - Engine out of paper
   - Paper jam
   - Lacking consumables (toner)
   - Job in progress

Using our host software on a Berkeley system, lpq will report back the
STATUS1 status for a given printer. I'm not sure how status is reported
on System V.

Tomorrow's printing will probably be like today's printing, you have
work-group, satellite, or centralized printing. This boils down to whether
you have an operator and how far you have to walk to pick up your printout.

     Mark

----

Name:	Mark Peek
Mail:	Imagen Corp. 2650 San Tomas Expressway, P.O. Box 58101
        Santa Clara, CA 95052-8101
AT&T:	(408) 986-9400
UUCP:	mark@imagen.com or ...!{decwrl,sun}!imagen!mark