Printing with LAT / Telnetsymbiont

[Wim Van den Wyngaert]

We had a printer working fine with LAT.

We replaced it by a telnetsymbiont. The logical tcpip$telnetsym_suppress_formfeeds is set to 1.

Result : the pageskip(ff) between listings is gone. Since the logical affects all queues, I can not change it.

The form used is default without setup.

I tried to set the sep page. Result : a ff is added but sometimes this reesults in extra ff thus wasting paper.

I tried a form with a ff in the setup. Ignored.

I tried a form with escP in the setup. Strange reactions.

Is there any good doc on what symbionts are exactly doing, esp. with ff ?

Wim

Btw : what an implementation ! You have to define the logical with a correct value before starting the queue. It would have been a lot better to have the queue name in the logical. Now I should warn all users that stop queues !

[Wim Van den Wyngaert]

Small detail : it was a LG06 using LAT that was replaced by a Tally 6140 with IP box to connect it to the network (Jetdirect is said when you do telnet to it).

Wim

[Wim Van den Wyngaert]

I print a file without FF init and without using a form.
Is LATSYM adding FF in certain situations ? (terminal settings, decserver port settings, etc).

Wim

[Bojan Nemec]

Hi,

All simbionts append an FF to the end of the printed file, and a FF at the begining of the first job (after stop/next).

By the way which symbiont are you using? Telnetsym or tcpip$telnetsym. In the documentation is said that these are two diferent symbionts. The tcpip$symbiont is talking to the port with the telnet protocol, (can be changed setting a logical) so the port (service) on the printer server must be set to telnet or the logical for raw protocol defined.

If I remember esc P is the ANSI escape sequence for nonstandard escape sequences, but Im not shure.

About the logicals I agree 100% with you, there should be a special qualifier to save this data in the queue. Something like USER_DATA or QUEUE_DATA. So each queue can have its settings.

Bojan

[Wim Van den Wyngaert]

That is exactly my problem. We ask to suppress the FF for the laser printers (or we get a blank page). But this way we suppress the FF between 2 listings on the tally.

The only solution I see is to put the tallys (not Thalys which is a TGV train over here) in a different owner group and to define a logical on group level.

Btw : we use the tcpip$telnetsym.

[Bojan Nemec]

Wim,

What abbout suppressing FFs on laser printers as Pathworks do. A special escape sequence in the /separate=reset? Now I have no VMS system on hand and I cant look which is the exact escape sequence and test if can work.

The second option (for me the best, I prefer LAT for priner servers) try to change the printer server with one which supports LAT. Lantronix MPS or LPS or one of Troy printer servers.

There is another option, write a new TCP/IP symbiont which has a litle more friendly setup.

Bojan

[Wim Van den Wyngaert]

No LAT allowed and since I hate printers I'm not going to write a new symb.

[Wim Van den Wyngaert]

Changing the owner of a queue doesn't change the owner of the symbiont process. So, group logicals don't work.

Nobody an idea ?

Wim

[labadie_1]

Wim

may be we should ask (with enough noise :-) that the tcpip$telnetsym* logicals can be printer specific. Many customers have 100 or more printers. The old idea of defining a logical for a printer, start it, defining the same logical with another value for another printer, start it... is not possible at all when you have a big number of printers to manage. And when you stop and start them later, it is not possible to stick to this approach. I do not know if such a change is planned for the next Tcpip version.

[Ian Miller.]

A suggestion - go to the http://www.hpuseradvocacy.org/ site and submit this issue, get five me too votes and hp are commited to respond.

[Wim Van den Wyngaert]

No solution for me. I have to get it in 7.3.

Wim

[Antoniov.]

Hi Wim,
when I'm guessing you created que with /NO_INIT qualifier I ask what do you want within esc P sequence?
I can't remember what does means in ANSI standard.

Antonio Vigliotti

[Wim Van den Wyngaert]

Antonio

Just found that escape on the net. Tried several escapes without result. Or better : with garbage on the page instead of a formfeed.

Wim

[Antoniov.]

Wim,
some times ago I met a trouble like yours. After investigation I discovered after form feed software sended a escape sequence to restore font and other feature. Some laser printer receiving this sequence make a blank page.
If you have time and patience, you can set hexdump print on printer and print a very little text file then you can see what printer receive after form-feed (code 12 or hex 0C).

Antonio Vigliotti

[Anton van Ruitenbeek]

Wim,

As far as I know to suppress the formfeeds you must set the logical TCPIP$TELNETSYM_SUPPRESS_FORM_FEEDS to 35.
Even set the logical TCPIP$TELNETSYM_RAW_TCP to TRUE.
Even if I'm informed correctly you can set this logical per printer.
So TCPIP$TELNETSYM_SUPPRESS_FORM_FEEDS_ABC will be used for the queue 'ABC'.
You need to use the TCPIP$TELNETSYM, but that is I think known ...

AvR

[Bojan Nemec]

Antonio, Wim,

EscP escape sequence is named Device Control String. All characters which are after this sequence are not interpreted as ANSI escape sequences. You must end with a String Terminator escape sequence which is esc\. In 8 bit communication you can use 0x90 (DCS) instead of escP and 0x9C (ST) instead of esc\.

Bojan