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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!feed1.news.erols.com!howland.erols.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!news.easystreet.com!not-for-mail From: tedm@agora.rdrop.com (Ted Mittelstaedt) Newsgroups: comp.periphs.printers,comp.sys.sun.admin,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: HP JetDirect (2552A): Serious LPD bug Date: 5 Mar 1997 08:27:22 GMT Organization: Cool Dudes Inc. Lines: 38 Message-ID: <5fjapa$t8g$1@easystreet03> References: <5f0ou4$luc@chronicle.concentric.net> <5fa721$2j8@uriah.heep.sax.de> NNTP-Posting-Host: sunnet.portsoft.com X-Newsreader: WinVN 0.92.6+ Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.periphs.printers:60559 comp.sys.sun.admin:82955 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:36573 In article <5fa721$2j8@uriah.heep.sax.de>, j@uriah.heep.sax.de (J Wunsch) says: > > >The mess starts with HP using some sort of proprietary protocol that >will cause the JetDirect to actually download the firmware. Hence, >they are providing idiot-prove upgrade tools that apparently only >idiots can use. Of course, they are only provided as binaries for I used to work for a company that was a contractor for the HP printer division, and I'm sorry to say that the HP printer division doesen't have much use for HP/UX, or any sort of Unix for that matter. Get used to having a Winblows machine around somewhere to upgrade your JetDirect card's firmware. A lot of this stems from the old "pride" thing. HP Printers decided a long time ago that they were going to compete with Adobe, and even today Postscript is still an option on all of their printers, while PCL6 or whatever is what they push. In fact, Hp doesen't even write Postscript drivers for their printers, these come from Adobe and Microsoft. Of course, Postscript is de-facto in Unix, including HP/UX. In fact, the only HP printer that HP recommends for use with HP/UX is their most expensive one, the 5SiMX, because even their own add-on printer control software for UX can only take full advantage of that model of printer. Believe it or not, HP's LPR support is actually intended for support of Windows NT first, Unix second. This is because the HP printer cards don't support NetBIOS-over-TCP/IP and until recently the only way to actually get print jobs over TCP/IP networks to NT servers was through LPR. (now they have an additional proprietary TCP/IP solution for NT) In Hp's defense, though, I'll say that if you can get through to a developer with a bug in LPR, they will fix it for you. You just will have to figure out the bug for yourself first. Also, one fortunate thing for Postscript fans is that because of PCL6 HP is kind of afraid of Postscript, so they liscense real live Postscript code from Adobe, and don't try to emulate it like Brother does.