Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!mips!spool.mu.edu!cs.umn.edu!kksys!pwcs!com50!craig
From: craig@com50.c2s.mn.org (Craig Wilson)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.fax
Subject: Re: Canon faxes with RS-232 interface
Message-ID: <1991May10.183718.7083@com50.c2s.mn.org>
Date: 10 May 91 18:37:18 GMT
References: <1991May09.090143.2652@nestroy.wu-wien.ac.at>
Organization: Com Squared Systems, Inc.
Lines: 34

In article <1991May09.090143.2652@nestroy.wu-wien.ac.at> mah@nestroy.wu-wien.ac.at (Michael Haberler) writes:
>A couple of days ago I mentioned a Canon fax with RS-232 interface and
>a simple async protocol. 

>Caveat : I dont know if this is `the' Canon serial protocol, or just a
>solution for a single fax model.

It has been four years since I have worked with the Canon L-910 and L-710
fax machines with RS-232 interfaces.  At that time, the protocols were
different between the two machines.

I did most of my work with the L-910.  The problems at that time were that
the L-910 could only receive at an effective 4800 bps.  It wouldn't provide
decent status codes at the right time.  And, it would 'go to sleep' in the
middle of a long transmission.

The L-910 had its own modified compression algorithm for the fax going
into/out of the serial port, too.

If you do the math, 2 minutes to send a page to the fax machine plus
another 1 minute to have the fax machine send the page to another fax
machine, it can take a long time to fax a large document.  We had a product
in which we controlled up to 8 Canon L-910's from one PC, and the PC
wouldn't ever really get bogged down.

The L-910 could be used as a printer (and copier), but the font for the
printing did not have true descenders for the lower case characters.

Maybe, you could respond and let us know if Canon has improved their
product in the areas I have described above.  Especially, with respect to
the transmission rate.


/craig