HP-UX 11.11 using hppi to print to color Tektronix Phaser 780

[Peter A. Berger Jr.]

Is it possible using JetAdmin/hppi on 11.11 to print in color to a Tektronix Phaser 780 networked printer. I've tried using various built-in model scripts for deskjets/color laserjets to no avail. Ultimately I'd like to print PerfView's color graphs to the 780. Any help would be great. thanks.
-- UNIX newbie

[Bill Hassell · Accepted solution]

HPPI is designed to work with HP JetDirect cards and LAN adapters. The LAN protocol is proprietary and uses ports 9100 through 9103. Unless the Tektronix Phaser is connected to an HP JetDirect adapter, it will never communicate with HPPI. This is a case of networked printer and remote printer being VERY different. The Tektronix printer (as are all other non-HP LAN adapters for printers) uses the RFC 1179 protocol, the remote printing standard.

So delete the printer from the spooling system and re-add it as a remote printer and be sure to check the BSD option. NOTE: you'll need the internal printer's name. It might be called PRN or TEXT or RAW or something similar. This will establish a useable connection to the Tektronix.

Now comes the next big incompatibility: Postscript versus plain ASCII. Most non-HP laser printers do not have an ASCII mode so sending "ABC" to the printer produces nothing or produces errors in the printer's log. HP printers all (a couple of PC-only exceptions) use PCL which is ASCII with enhancements. To print to a Postscript printer, you'll have to format the data into Postscript. There is a postscript model script but it's sole job is to take ASCII and format it into a simple Postscript job.

For data that is already in Poscript format, you can send the data as is and it should print OK. However, the PerfView graphs will be a problem. Xwindows provides truly archaic printing facilities so you'll need utilities to capture the image (such as xwd), then convert these files into a more useable format such as JPEG or GIF. There tools like xv (http://www.trilon.com/xv/xv.html) and ImageMagick (http://www.imagemagick.org) as well as do-it-yourself filters like PBM (Portable Bit Map - http://hpux.connect.org.uk/hppd/hpux/X11/Graphics/netpbm-10.6/).

You may find it easier to get the free PBM package, convert the images to JPEG or GIF and then ftp them to a PC to be imported into Word or PowerPoint files.