Can PSF/AIX support the Xerox 4635 or 4890 printers?
ITEM: RTA000100897
Q:
ABSTRACT: Can PSF/AIX support the Xerox 4635 or 4890 printers?
How about with the Xerox IPS controller? Thanks.
SEARCH ARG: aix 4890 | 4635
TOPIC THREAD: PRINT
PSF/AIX
A March 95 ASKQ Q/A discussed Xerox printer attachment to an RS/6000
and support under PSF/AIX. I just got the same question from a
customer. Here is my response to them:
"PSF/6000 only supports IPDS, PCL (4, 5, 5C) and PPDS as output data
streams. PSF/6000 does not support the proprietary Xerox data streams,
either as input or as output data streams. Nor am I aware of a device
driver for the Xerox printer off a S/370 Channel Emulator/A adapter.
If driving off a LAN (read NOT channel) and printing to an Xerox IPS
printer that says he can print as an IPDS printer, then that ought to
work. If there is a way to use the Xerox as a PCL printer, same answer,
yes. If there is an XPAF type program for the RS/6000 and there is
XPAF-based LAN attachment support, yes. If Xerox can supply a driver
that allows them to use the Channel Adapter/A, then maybe Xerox
channel-attach is viable."
Is the response correct? Have there been any new developments that
I have missed?
Thanks for your help.
A:
You cover a number of excellent points. Boulder has not tested
PSF/AIX with Xerox IPDS printers.There are some customers driving
Xerox IPDS printers successfully; however we do have some reports of
operational issues from an SE and his customer that I'd like to share
with you.
Some terminology. The HPU is a powered unit that takes the bus & tag
cable from the RS6000 and connects to special cable going into the
back of the Sun.
First known problem: If the HPU unit is powered off and back on, the
RS6000 knows there is a printer connection over the channel bus &
tag, but the sense command shows an error and is not able to print.
The correct communications to the "printer" cannot be re-established
unless the RS/6000 is rebooted. The SE tried various procedures to see
if the channel communications could be re-established without booting
the RS6000. According to the SE, "This is not good for production
purposes, and the machine cannot be rebooted as the customer will
have multiple printers and incoming customer data."
The customer and SE found that a workaround is that after powering
off the Sun Workstation, to leave the HPU unit switched on. The
Sun Workstation is powered off when the Xerox printer is ready
to manually switch back to its LCDS mode.
Second problem: They found that if they leave the HPU on and then
repower/reboot the Sun Workstation while the PSF print queues are
in READY status, after reboot of the Sun the print jobs have a font
problem, they are unable to print jobs and get blank pages.
Their workaround is to take the PSF queues to DOWN status before
turning off the Sun Workstation. Once the Sun is up and running,
then change the queues to READY.
(Updated 30 March 1998)
S e a r c h - k e y w o r d s:
AIX PSF/6000 PSF/AIX PSF XEROX CHANNEL 4890 4635 PRINTER IPDS IPS
infoprint lan s/370 hpu
WWQA: ITEM: RTA000100897 ITEM: RTA000100897
Dated: 11/1999 Category: XPSF6000
This HTML file was generated 2000/11/30~13:34:06
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