[ale] printing

[Jeff Hubbs]

There are some models of HP printer where the Postscript implementation 
is defective up until a certain firmware revision so if you're at all 
Postscript-dependent, you need to watch out for that. I ran into this at 
An Unnamed Previous Employer that used hundreds of different printers as 
output from a given web app - I tried to greatly simplify administration 
by going PS-everyplace but certain of the printers would choke. This set 
me to writing a script that polled printers for firmware version and 
initiated an update via FTP if needed.

As an aside, many years ago I deployed a COBOL app on VMS that used a 
particular model of QMS laser printer. The developers had to bypass the 
VMS print queuing system in favor of its own because the app needed to 
switch the printer between PS for some forms and native mode for others, 
but these printers would go dead to the world for a while when a switch 
was made so the queuing system had to have a built-in delay. Fun, fun.

On 9/10/16 5:20 PM, Jim Kinney wrote:
>
> Foomatic! That's the extra printers package I was trying to remember. 
> Not gutenprint. foomatic is a giant collection of printers and specs 
> for cups.
>
>
> On Sep 10, 2016 5:13 PM, "Jim Kinney" <jim.kinney at gmail.com 
> <mailto:jim.kinney at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     You are quite correct! I now recall only installing it for use
>     with gimp work in the past.
>
>
>     On Sep 10, 2016 3:59 PM, "Solomon Peachy" <pizza at shaftnet.org
>     <mailto:pizza at shaftnet.org>> wrote:
>
>         On Sat, Sep 10, 2016 at 02:55:56PM -0400, Jim Kinney wrote:
>         > Some benefit from the gutenprint tool to get max resolutions
>         and paper use.
>
>         That's not quite right -- Gutenprint is all about high quality
>         image
>         printing, and only supports B&W on PCL-enabled printers.
>
>         Alas, the PCL code hasn't seen any love in quite some time now.
>
>         (And now, back to my quiet afternoon attempting to
>         reverse-engineer
>          a high-end Mitsubishi dyesub photo printer...)
>
>          - Solomon
>         --
>         Solomon Peachy                         pizza at shaftnet dot org
>         Delray Beach, FL                          ^^ (email/xmpp) ^^
>         Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
>
>
>
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