Printer compatibility

[Brian K. White]

On 9/20/2011 4:33 PM, Jean-Pierre A. Radley wrote:
> Kenneth Brody propounded (on Tue, Sep 20, 2011 at 03:57:40PM -0400):
> | On 9/20/2011 3:41 PM, Jean-Pierre A. Radley wrote:
> |>  I'm looking at a spec sheet for the HP LaserJet P2035n Printer, and read:
> |>
> |>  	Standard Printer Languages:  Host Based, UPD (HP PCL5e)
> |>
> |>  Does that imply that it will only work on Windows?  IOW, you could
> |>  generate PCL3 or PCL5 codes, as filePro has been doing forever, but it
> |>  would have to be interpreted by HP's UPD driver, which doesn't run on
> |>  Unix/Linux?
> |
> | According to the UPD FAQ:
> |
> | http://bizsupport2.austin.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c01366409/c01366409.pdf
> |
> | It appears that UPD is simply their way of putting drivers for all of their
> | printers in a single "universal print driver".  The fact that the printer
> | specs say "UPD (HP PCL5e)" seems to imply (to me, at least) that the printer
> | accepts PCL5e, and that you can use HP's UPD driver for Windows.
> |
> | Also, the printer manual:
> |
> | http://bizsupport2.austin.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c01550183/c01550183.pdf
> |
> |>  The HP LaserJet P2030 Series comes with software and installers for
> |>  Windows and Apple Computer, Inc., Macintosh systems. LINUX and UNIX
> |>  systems support the product, and software is available on the Web.
> |
> | as well as:
> |
> |>  You can also print to the product from any operating system that
> |>  complies with the PCL command language, such as OS2, UNIX, or Linux
> |>  systems.
> |
> | It would be nice, of course, if the specs simply listed "PCL5e" as one of
> | the supported languages, rather than cloaking it with "UPD".
>
>
> I should back up a bit.  Someone has tried to use this printer on SCO
> 5.0.7, using netcat, and is getting no output.
>


Then we have "use???" as in, did they try a low level test yet that 
skips all possible spooler & filepro issues?
echo "\003Ethis is a test\r\n\003E" |netcat 10.0.0.20 9100

This:

http://hplipopensource.com/hplip-web/models/laserjet/hp_laserjet_p2035n.html

suggests pretty clearly to me that this printer can not print text 
directly, even if the wording of that field on the hp site is ambiguous, 
self conflicting, and meaningless.

But if you telnet to the printer and verify that it's menu says it's 
listening on port 9100 (or verify with nmap or just by installing the 
printer on any desktop), and the above echo test doesn't work, then 
that's the end of the mystery, no need to bother trying any further.

-- 
bkw