Generate a .PRN file or print to file using DCPS 2.7 and HP-9050

[teamsoutheast]

Hi everyone,

Does anybody know how to generate a print to file on DCPS 2.7 using a HP-9050 printer? We would like to try and analyse the RAW print output for troubleshooting purposes.

Thanks in advance!

[Mark_Corcoran]

The context of this (and your other post) doesn't explicitly state it, but given that you are posting to the OpenVMS forum, I'm assuming we're talking about DCPS running on OpenVMS.

It's been almost 20 years since I last used DCPS at my first company (we were a DEC VAR, and the Managing Director took advantage of VAR discounts to buy a DEC laser printer of some description without realising it supported Postscript (and possibly some DEC-proprietary PCL) rather than the PCL used by HP laserjets;  consequently, we ended up installing DCPS to allow us to print to it).

Consequently, my memory is a bit hazy (and I don't have access to a system with DCPS installed, much less remember what version the company used way back then).

However, I have a vague recollection that DCPS involved use of Generic and Execution queues in OpenVMS, and that the DCPS print symbiont possibly/probably created "spooler" files which were essentially the raw Postscript that you're looking for, which were either sent to the execution queue, or remained in some spool/temporary directory, in case there were issues with the execution queue (i.e. rather than have the overhead of re-generating the files, they would remain on disk long enough to be repeatedly retried)).

If we are talking about DCPS on OpenVMS, can you see what print queues you have with SHOW QUEUE /FULL /ALL ?

Is it possible that you could temporarily stop a/the DCPS print execution queue, submit your existing print test job, then try another even more basic one (just a line with the alphabet on it), so that you could see what (if any) files have been created for processing on the queue, take a copy of the file(s) and then restart the queue, or is it production-critical?

Are there any relevant logical names that look like they may pertain to DCPS and/or spool locations?

SHOW LOGICAL * /TABLE=* /OUT=A.A

SEARCH A.A PS,DCPS,SPOOL,PRINT

DELETE /CONFIRM /LOG A.A;

Based on your other post, I gather that you're not getting printing to work with Kyocera printers;  I'm not sure how old DCPS v2.7 is, whether there is a newer version of it, and whether or not there have been changes to Postscript "standards" since it was released.

It's possible that what DCPS is generating is either not understood at all by Kyocera  (or the Kyocera is more particular about the formatting), or that what DCPS is generating may be (as far as the Kyocera is concerned) deprecated.

Does the Kyocera give any indication that it is receiving anything at all (or that it doesn't like what it receives)?

If there's no indication it is receiving anything (and has no means of running in a debug/diagnostic/instrumented mode), it may well be a communication issue rather than a PS content issue... how is it connected - serial? network?

 Additionally, the print jobs being generated for the printer - are they initially being generated by some application as say text files, and DCPS is converting them to Postscript or is some application generating Postscript which DCPS is altering after it has received it?

Just my (hazy) <insert small coin denomination here>'s worth...