P2035 and VMS

[Rich Hearn]

Hi folks,

I needed to get an HPLJ P2035 to print portrait, compressed, & landscape from my vms cluster. I've seen 1 or 2 other vms type folks looking for a way to get them to print from vms also. I thought I'd try to return some of the help I've received here. I got this working today...

Instead of setting the printer up as an LPD type, I set it up as STREAM - this allowed portrait with the default font. I did this by specifying the port to be 9100.

To get compressed, I created the following string and a text Library to put it in. I call it when I want to tell the printer "go into compressed mode" - I also have a reset that gets sent from the same text library at the end of the job.

Ò =

ÒPÒ&l0oÒ&k2SÒ\ - portrait &l0o (zero/oh)
- compressed &k2S (16.5-16.7)

I did a similar string specifying Landscape
ÒPÒ&l1oÒ&k4SÒ\ - landscape &l1o (oh)
- 12.0 pitch &k4S

ÒPÒ&l1oÒ&k0SÒ\ - std pitch 10.0
Ò]VMS;2Ò\ÒPÒEÒ\ - reset

There's also a printer timer set up on the web page that I had to set - settings/print settings - io timeout<120> 5

I'm sending straight ascii text files, but I hope this may be of help to others.

If I'm un-clear on things, feel free to give an ask

Rich

[Ian Miller.]

Which version of OpenVMS, TCPIP, and do you have DCPS?

[Ian Miller.]

I note that the latest version of DCPS (V2.7) does not list this printer as supported.

[Rich Hearn]

Ian,

Apologies for not including the versions.

I'm using Process Softwares Multinet, but I'm of the impression (perhaps incorrectly)that TCP/IP Svcs for VMS & Multinet aren't that different in capabilities.

My VMS is v8.3 on 2 node Alpha cluster and I don't have DCPS on the system. I'm using Multinet v5.2, but I've also used this with my VMS v7.3-2 and Multinet v5.0. This is more VMS based than Multinet.

The "interesting" part is figuring out what it takes to put a Text Library together to call. An example of how I've got the printer (and variants) set up is in the attachment.

Let me know if more clarification is needed.

Rich

[Hoff]

This is a description of how to select some options with a device control library, using ANSI control sequences. See:

http://labs.hoffmanlabs.com/node/622

Thanks for posting this, Rich.

Mind if I borrow those sequences to update the above topic?

There are vast numbers of Postscript printers that aren't supported by DCPS. Some can be gotten to work, using the "unsupported" mechanism. (In this case, the HP LaserJet P2035 and P2035n series printers do not appear to be Postscript or Postscript-compatible printers, which means DCPS isn't applicable here.)

ASCII-based printers (usually) work, and pretty much any version of OpenVMS that can reach the (I presume) HP LaserJet P2035n IP-based network printer. Getting the box to work via USB or the parallel port is conceivable, but would definitely not be my choice. My rule of thumb: only buy printers that have a network interface.

When selecting a printer, one (other) detail to watch for with various recent HP printers (and those of other vendors) is host-based rendering. That capability is generally not available for OpenVMS, and those printers do not operate with OpenVMS. Details:

http://labs.hoffmanlabs.com/node/756

[Richard Jordan]

There is another issue to be aware of with recent low-end HP printers; I'm not sure if the 2035 is one of these, but the 2015 certainly is. Even printers that state they are PCL5 compliant are often 'limited' (I prefer crippled) compared to earlier LaserJets. For years if you got a newer printer in the same general series (2xxx, 3xxx, 4xxx, etc) you got more capabilities. Quite often now you may find you have fewer capabilities, fonts, features, etc available from PCL5; they're only provided for PC/Mac/etc users using HP PCL6 drivers.

For example the 2015 printers have both PCL5 and PCL6 (PCL-XL) compatibility, but only a resticted subset of fonts is available under PCL5 (which VMS would be most likely to use); HP has not made PCL6 drivers or support available for VMS, nor has it released a formal specification so you can roll your own as you could with PCL5 (there are beta docs available). As I recall none of the proportional fonts were available from PCL5 on the 2015, which made it unusable in the environment we bought it for.

The info concerning the detailed differences in PCL5 capabilities and fonts was NOT available "pre-sales". We found out when we read the docs that came with it and printed out the font pages. We ended up having to upgrade to a 3xxx printer to get what used to be basic capabilities under PCL5 back.

[Rich Hearn]

Hoff,

By all means - feel free to "borrow"; only too happy to contribute in some way.

If I can find my font test sequences from a previous test time, I'll "tack" them on here as another reply as an example of how to choose the built-in fonts.

ok, I did find them - they're in the attachment. I believe I used them for the lj 1100 testing I had done.

The sequences I've included also work with the Canon iR series I've run into so far (330-400, 3235, 3320, 3570, 5050) - they "do" pcl-5.


Richard,

If I'm remembering correctly from the user manual, the "on-board" pcl-5 fonts are "limited" and there's no Dimm you can purchase to support more fonts (like the 2015 could do).

I agree with you, in short, the Host-based printers should not be used with VMS unless the default font is acceptable.

Rich