Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!qucdn!smithm
From: SMITHM@QUCDN.QueensU.CA
Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript
Subject: IBM 4019 Emulation Switching
Message-ID: <90215.111938SMITHM@QUCDN.BITNET>
Date: 3 Aug 90 15:19:38 GMT
Organization: Queen's University at Kingston
Lines: 30

I've got a user who purchased an IBM 4019 LaserPrinter with the PostScript
option.  He wants to also print PCL files.  Over the past several weeks
I've been trying to get IBM Support in Toronto to tell me how to switch
emulation modes via software.  IBM faxed me a manual page that was supposed
to be the answer.  The fact that the sequence showed how to go from IBM
PPDS to PostScript instead of PCL to PostScript was problematic.  Of more
concern was the fact that each switch out of PostScript mode writes to NVRAM
and this memory expires after 6000 writes.

Does anyone have this 4019 beast and use it in a mixed PCL/PostScript
environment?  After weeks of delay, IBM sent me a DOS program which supposedly
supports emulation switching.  We trapped the output of the program
to determine the magic incantations so that they could be used in a Sun
printer driver.  Alas, the switch seems to work sometimes and not others.
Since the output of the IBM supplied DOS program disagrees with the IBM
supplied documentation we're at a loss to help ourselves.  I still have
the problem open with IBM but life is so short I'm hoping somebody in netland
can give me the answer before I retire.

Another thing nobody at IBM knows is, what is the procedure to replace
the NVRAM and what does it cost?

This whole matter has been incredibly frustrating.  The owner of the 4019
is rightly p*ssed off because he was told before he bought the unit that
the mixed PCL/PostScript usage would be no problem.


 Mike Smith                                  SMITHM@QUCDN.BITNET
 Queen's University                          Michael.D.Smith@QueensU.CA
 Computing and Communications Services       (613) 545-2024