Ricoh Printers?

[Peter Quodling]

Yes, I know they are not supported, but has anyone had any success going down the path of getting Ricoh printers working with DCPS? I have just won a site that has decided to move from HP Printers to Ricoh, without checking SW compatability. We are talking a broad range of Ricohs. R2045, R2015, R1060, R600, R4510. R3800 and R7000.

q

[Antoniov.]

Peter,
I guess also Ricoh printer use PCL protocol or else postscript. DCPS can print on these two kind of printers in text mode.

Antonio Vigliotti

[Anton van Ruitenbeek]

Peter,

If the printer is using PCL or Postscript DCPS should work fine. The major problem I think is the network connection. Does Ricoh supporting TELNETSYM (socket 9100 at HP printers) ?
Postscript is luckely postscript.

AvR

[Peter Quodling]

Well, in my copious spare time, I have managed to devote some more effort to this.

Asking Ricoh for assistance was a waste of time. They responded but were more interested in where we bought the printers (my guess about $3M worth) than the problem.

Nope they don't talk HP style with Port 9100.

Hidden away in a Ricoh web site I found some documentation that pointed to the fact that these things can handle LPD printing from UNix Systems. ftp to the printer, and you can download a install script for Eunuchs variants. So I have setup a queue off an IP_LPD type. OH frabjoy, I print a file, and I hear the printer wake and print. Run to the printer, and what I have is a bunch of raw postscript. would appear to be the device control header files.

I have experimented with most of the "optional" buttons in the DCPS Documentation...

I have been experimenting with the dcps customization settings. dcps$queuename_ etc. To no avail...

Any ideas....

[Paul Lucre]

Peter may I susgest that you work if the printer is in fact switching into postscript mode.

you have established that the printer has and LPD server built in so the next thing to try is Telnet to the printer on port 515 and then enter the following if the printer is in postscript mode it will respond to the commenads.
$ telnet 515

Then switch to postscript mode
%!PS-Adobe-3.0 (CTRL M)

Then request the printer name
statusdict begin product == flush end (CTRL M)
Repeat this several times - if the printer is talking then enter CTRL T
for the printer status

if you do not get anything returned then the printer may not be able to autoswitch into postscript mode and that may explain why you get text instead of the correct printout

[Peter Quodling]

A telnet to port 515 on the printer returns.


RICOH Maintenance Shell.
User access verification.
Password:
Incorrect password
Password:

Peter

[Paul Lucre]

I suggest that you try telnet to the IP address only and see if you get the same result. port 515 is the standard LPD server port and should not reply with a username and password request.

so if you try to Telnet to the ip address and get the same result without a port number then you are not accessing the 515 LPD port.

[TonyMcGrath]

Most of the modern Ricoh (and Kyocera, HP, etc.) printers have internal web servers, you can connect via HTTP from your favorite web browser and configure the printers.
From that I was able to determine that some our Ricoh's accept TELNETSYM connections on Port 10000 or 10001, others on Port 9100 (just like HP). Look for a reference to a "Base Port Number".

[Carl Couric]

Hi Peter,

We have a few Ricohs we print to today at FHP Manufacturing. They range in size but all of them are setup as a print queue like this:

Printer queue FHP_P43, idle, on FLVAX1::"10.44.151.43:9100", mounted form DEFAUL
(stock=DEFAULT)

/AUTOSTART_ON=(FLVAX1::"10.44.151.43:9100") /BASE_PRIORITY=4
/DEFAULT=(FORM=DEFAULT) /LIBRARY=MIS-HPLJ-THF Lowercase /OWNER=[400,0]
/PROCESSOR=TCPIP$TELNETSYM /PROTECTION=(S:RSMD,O:D,G:RSM,W:RS)

The library file we use is a HP PCL type, you will need something similar. Worst case, we could put the library somewhere on the net for download if needed. The library file just has simple PCL commands, very much like a HP 2100 would have to reset margins, set the page size, etc. Notice that the Ricoh will accept the 9100 port for "reverse telnet" connection. Here is the command we use to initially setup the queue:

$ init/queue/auto_on=FLVAX1::"10.44.151.43:9100" -
/default=(NOFEED,FORM=DEFAULT,NOFLAG) -
/owner=[400,0] /prot=(s:rwed,g:rwe,O:d,w:rw)-
/processor=tcpip$telnetsym -
/desc="Ricoh 1045P PCL Printer first floor hallway" -
/library=mis-hplj-thf FHP_P43

Hope this helps,
Carl
http://www.carlc.com - OpenVMS Webhosting since 1999