Printers and print server

[Indira Aramandla]

Hi,

We have a HP Jetdirect-Ex J2382B print server.
And two line printers
HP 2300 Series 840L
HP 2563 Series 840L

These line printers are connected to an L1500-7x class rp5430 server. These printers are basically used for printing reports (132 column). The printers work fine and we do not have have any problems with their functioning.

The issue here is they are very old and not on support. So can you please advice me what are the current print servers and printer configurations for a line printer to be connected to and HP-UX server. Or May be what procedure to get the priters that are on support.


Thanks
Indira A

[Rajeev Shukla · Accepted solution]

Hi Indira,

I dont see any heavy duty printers (Line printers) manifactured by HP any more and also the Jetdirect print servers are no more available in the market. But what i have come accross is Intel has some print servers and their software too works well on HPUX 10.20, 11.00 and 11i.
But i can see couple of external print servers from HP on their website
http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF02a/18972-236253-64302.html
You can try if they are still selling them in market.
It is probably best to buy the line printers from tally and connect them on network using external printer server (HP or Intel) and trust me they both work well.

Cheers
Rajeev

[Indira Aramandla]

Thanks for the quick reply Rajeev.

I had browsed throught he link that you sent. I can see the external print servers. So if we purchase one of these print servers to replace our Jetdirect-Ex J2382B print server, can we be sure that our line printers (HP 2300 Series 840L and HP 2563 Series 840L) would be compatable with the print server.

Or should we replace the line printers as well. Can you please provide me details as to what line printers are compatable with the print server and which are lates so that they can be supported by HP.

Indira A

[Bill Hassell]

Impact printers like the 840 series are long gone from HP's product lines. Most IT departments have migrated to laser or inkjet printers. However, there are still applications where a large format printer (sometimes clled green-bar printers for the paper they use) is still a better choice. Manufacturers that still make dot-matrix or drum/core-bar technology are:

Epson
http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/ProductCategory.jsp?BV_UseBVCookie=yes&oid=-8185

OKI Data
http://www.okidata.com/mkt/html/nf/SIDM.html

Tally-Genicom
http://www.tallygenicom.com/products

Printronix
http://www.printronix.com/

Be sure that the printer you choose has a service contract (impact printers wear out) and has a parallel port so you can hook it to an HP JetDirect external box. The JetDirect adapter is the easiest way to talk to the printer and allows the most flexibility for print options. I believe that Tally may have had a migration path with HP. This would be ideal if your reports use PCL codes to control fonts and graphics. Otherwise, you may face a long software migration to work with a non-PCL printer.

[Devender Khatana]

Hi,

Yes, Line printers are not available from HP as of now. But obviously we can have HP Jetdirect allthough not always available because nowadays most of modern laser printers have built in cards. Yes, Tally is no doubt a very good brand atleast in line printers and you will have printers of various categories ( Many Options). Still at your location some other brand may be a better option depending on post sales parameters.

Offcourse I think HP would not be supporting these printers now. And these should also be replaced as printer is such a product which can not survive long without support.

HTH,
Devender

[Rajeev Shukla]

Hi Indira,

Line printers work on either parallel or serial protocols so as long as your printserver has the desired port to connect the printer it will surely work.
So as long as you can configure the print server on the Unix server any printer will work.
And i have seen one nice thing with the intel print servers is that you can assign printers to the port, like parallel 1, parallel 2 or serial so it becomes more easy to differentiate the printer as to which port they are connected.
But unfortunately they are obsolete now
http://support.intel.com/support/netport/pro/
And yes you need not change your line printers, they will work fine with any print server.

Cheers
Rajeev