Printer Protocol

[David Evennou]

Anyone know the protocol that starts with:
~PRNCLM418x~#

This data is being sent to an HP JetDirect Print Server from a Novell netowrk and I have been searching for information on this for many hours.

Thanks,
David Evennou

[Bill Hassell · Accepted solution]

It looks a little bit like a print job number rather than a printer language. There are really only two basic printing languages: PCL (which is ASCII on steroids, ie, escape sequences) and Postscript. There are variations of ASCII codes such as Epson and other older printer codes, but the basic code has been ASCII/PCL and Postscript for many years. Just for completeness, HP printers may optionally insert PJL (Printer Job Language commands to control the hardware) characters at the beginning of the file.

(OK, some printers know EBCDIC and others understand Burroughs codes and still others understand 16 bit codes for Asian languages...)

Check the Novelll server and see if the ~PRN... string looks somewhat familiar.

[David Evennou]

Thanks Bill,

If I was the printer, what would my response be to the spooler(NFS)? Is there a software handshake?

David Evennou