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  • Subject: RE: IP Printer help - how to control spool files
  • From: "Shaw, David" <dshaw@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2000 10:40:54 -0500

Joel,

The problem is that remote writer support over IP uses LPR/LPD, which has no
provisions in its spec for the kind of spool file control that we are used to on
the /400.  There are drivers for direct IP writer support for printers that
support PCL/PJL, but of course the Zebra doesn't.  There are some work-arounds
available, however.

1) Brad Stone's SPLTOOL and several other tools around can extract pages out of
one spool file and put them into another that can then be printed.  SPLTOOL is
nice because the interface is slick and it has lots of useful bells and
whistles.  Tools to do this kind of thing have been around since the dawn of the
/38, and the principles are pretty well known - you could easily write your own
if you can't find one to your liking.

2) One of the spooling developers up in Rochester wrote an exit program that can
semi-magically enable remote writers to handle page ranges - the source is in
newer versions of QUSRTOOL.  Look in QATTINFO for member TSPRWPRI.  The main
drawback is that it's written in C, which most shops don't have.  There is a Web
site where a save file with the compiled objects can be downloaded, but I've
misplaced the URL (I happen to have the ILE C compiler here, so I didn't need to
keep it).  The exit program works pretty well, although it won't work if you're
using Host Print Transform.  I think the developer is Rodney Johnson - he's on
the newsgroup comp.sys.ibm.as400.misc a lot, but I don't recall seeing him here
on the list.

I hope this helps!

Dave Shaw
Spartan International, Inc.
Spartanburg, SC

-----Original Message-----
From: Stone, Joel [mailto:StoneJ@GourmetAward.com]
Sent: Thursday, March 09, 2000 5:08 PM
To: 'MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com'
Subject: IP Printer help - how to control spool files


I have a Zebra thermal bar code label printer configured as an IP printer.  It
is remotely connected to an AS/400 using an ethernet network and Cisco router.
It is not twinax.
It is 500 miles from the AS/400. 
I can only get the printer to work as a remote writer, which I think means I
cannot control the spool file.  For example if I need to 
re-print the 5,001st label, I have to re-print the first 5000 before the 5001st
will print. 
I need an operator to be able to reprint labels, restart spool files, etc. 
We have had this printer work before as desired, but only when it was configured
as twinax.  Is there a way to get this spool file control with a printer
configured as an IP printer?
If I must go to twinax, it will cost a fortune to buy a 170 to act as a remote
controller just to drive a label printer.  Or buy a IBM 5494 controller, which
of course is no longer supported.  Or buy a Perle box.
Doesn't the AS/400 fully support remote IP printers?  How can the AS/400 compete
if it doesnt support IP printers??? 
+---
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