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Dear Leo, Last year I crafted a small report about the growing use of digital copier/printers in organizations that also use the IBM iSeries and AS/400 hosts as well. These office equipment devices are frequently called MFP's which is an abbreviation for multifunction peripheral. The Toshiba e-Studio devices that you are installing fall into this category of combination machine. Some general information about them would be as follows: The MFP segment includes a low end of device (for home use or small business frequently using InkJet or Laser printing technology), a medium powered device category (typically a digital copier printer with a rated throughput in the 25 to 80 PPM range) and a high end device category frequently used in the print shop and print on demand industry segments. One of the software development companies known for creating OEM print drivers (Software 2000) includes the following quote regarding the growing use of digital copiers as printers on their web site http://www.sw2000.com/new/index1.html. This segment has historically been driven by technology-savvy copier suppliers. Today it threatens to replace many of the business network printer devices with more capable and useful machines. Devices are based on the combination of digital scanner, digital printer, and copier and printer interfaces. Users can operate the device as-if a standalone photocopier with the same ease they are familiar with, and as a networked high-speed computer printer. Printer features are similar to high-end business lasers although speeds are commonly higher due to the copier engine expertise by many companies in this area. Companies that own iSeries or AS/400 hosts are beginning to purchase the MFP machines, that are rapidly filling the medium powered device category described above, on a recurring basis. End users trying to link their iSeries hosts to these MFP machines for printing purposes are finding some new challenges that are sometimes rather difficult to overcome. Currently IBM has rather limited information available on the iSeries AS/400 Technical Support web page that explains the steps to follow to successfully configure an OS/400 printer device description that can properly support an MFP. The answers to your specific questions would be as follows: 1. What iSeries Host Print Transform driver program to use - Remote Output Queue in order to use LPR as the transport protocol. If you need to print to an actual iSeries print device, create a virtual printer that is not made active at IPL and link it to your remote output queue. The MFP print controller market has moved much more slowly than the multi-protocol printer interface market segment (ie products like HP JetDirect) into supporting the Raw TCP Socket printing protocols (frequently referred to as port 9100 by many users). Lack of Raw TCP Socket support in the MFP print controller prevents you from using the iSeries HPPCLDRV driver. Also the support for SNMP has been slow to materialize in many of the MFP print controllers because the original printer MIB (RFC 1759) didn't say a lot about the management of finishing features (hole punch, stapling, booklet creation, etc.). A new updated RFC is just now heading into the Standards Track approval process that describes how to manage these extended printer capabilities across a network by using SNMP. It is therefore quite likely that by the end of this year there will be SNMP enabled MFP print controllers appearing in the marketplace that support the SNMP feature set required by the iSeries IBMSNMPDRV driver program. This is typically not the case today. 2. What Manufacturer Type and Model to Select When Enabling Host Print Transform on the iSeries host - My first suggestion would be the HP 5si for the e-Studio 45. The reason is that the input tray mappings (WSCST Tag DWRSLT) for the HP 5si very closely match the values used by the Toshiba GL-1010 print controllers. e-Studio 45 w/GL-1010 Print Controller e-Studio Input Tray Description PCL Tray Selection Number Upper Tray 1 Lower Tray 4 Pedestal Upper Tray 5 Pedestal Lower Tray 20 Pedestal With Only the Large Capacity Tray 5 Instead of the two smaller trays In this scenario, the only input tray selection number that is unsupported by the HP 5si is Pedestal Lower Tray. When printing to the e-Studio 80, I would suggest the Host Print Transform HP 8000 driver as the first choice when using the GA-1060 print controller since the only input tray selection number that is unsupported by the HP 8000 is the Lower Cassette. If printing to the e-Studio 80 with the SC-2 print controller, I would suggest the Hp 5si driver as the first choice because the only input tray selection number that is unsupported by the HP 5si is the Lower Cassette. e-Studio 80 w/GA-1060 Print Controller e-Studio Input Tray Description PCL Tray Selection Number Upper Cassette 1 Middle Cassette 5 Lower Cassette 10 Large Capacity Feeder 8 e-Studio 80 w/SC-2 Print Controller e-Studio Input Tray Description PCL Tray Selection Number Upper Cassette 1 Middle Cassette 4 Lower Cassette 20 Large Capacity Feeder 5 If either the e-Studio 45 or the e-Studio 80 is using a Fiery print controller (GA-1040 or GA-1110), you will need to get the PCL 5e reference for the controller from Toshiba in order to determine the PCL numbers that select the input trays. 3a. Other Things to be Aware of When Printing SCS Data to an MFP - Frequently end users want to select finishing options for their iSeries output. The commands that activate finishing options on an MFP when using PCL based data streams are known as PJL (Printer Job Language) commands. These commands are always sent at the beginning and the end of a job in order to set the default environment for the processing of a particular spool file. The Host Print Transform function of OS/400 has no support for PJL commands. If you create a PC5250 print session with Client Access that does not use Host Print Transform (uncheck the box Transform Print Data to ASCII on AS/400), the OS/400 EBCDIC data would be transferred natively from the iSeries to the PC running Client Access. If you also make sure that you do not select the Use PDT checkbox, Client Access will convert your EBCDIC data into a Windows format known as GDI on the PC running Client Access. The GDI format is the generic input format required by Windows print drivers. You should be able to use the appropriate Toshiba Windows print driver to format the data and all of the finishing options will then be supported. Besides Client Access there are some third party iSeries printing software products in the marketplace that perform the same function as the PC5250 printer sessions available with Client Access. 3b. Other Things to be Aware of When Printing IPDS Data to an MFP - Since Host Print Transform doesn't support PJL commands and the Client Access PC5250 sessions don't support the conversion of native IPDS formatted data streams into other data stream formats, the third party software market is currently the only option available for processing iSeries resident AFP enabled applications that an end user would like to merge with finishing options such as hole punching and stapling available on an MFP. The only other option currently available from IBM is to transform the AFP output to PDF and then print the PDF file through a standard Toshiba print driver choosing the appropriate finishing options. Also Beware Duplex - Sometimes (but not always) Fiery controllers will use a special Letter paper size command that is unique to the Fiery controller in order to know whether the Letter paper has been installed in portrait or landscape orientation in an input tray. If the Fiery controller doesn't receive its unique paper orientation command, it is not possible to invoke short edge duplex when printing on Letter sized paper. Typically you can sneak the appropriate PCL sequence into the Paper Drawer Selection Tag of a WSCST, as a second PCL sequence to send, when it is found to be necessary. Bottom Line - Both the iSeries - AS/400 hosts and the multifunction peripherals are very good business productivity tools. With a little effort and imagination, they can be made to work together efficiently and reliably. HTH Best Regards, /Paul -- Paul Tykodi National Product Manager LCI-Intermate US, Inc. p: 603.431.0606 x115 f: 603.436.6432 paul@intermate-us.com www.intermate.com >Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2002 22:49:42 -0500 >From: Leo Lefebvre <leo@tug.ca> >To: midrange-l <MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com> >Subject: Toshiba e-Studio 80 and e-Studio 45 >Reply-To: midrange-l@midrange.com > >Hi Everyone, > >My client just acquired few Toshiba printers and I would like to connect >them to the AS/400 (V4R5) > >When I create the 'device printer' what should I use for : > >----> Manufacturer type and model (MFRTYPMDL) and >----> System driver program (SYSDRVPGM) >(Toshiba is not in the list suggested by IBM) > >Is there an HP, or Lexmark or IBM equivalance I can use? >What other parameter(s) should I be looking for? > > >-- > >Leo Lefebvre >Vice & Past President >Toronto Users Group for Midrange Systems >Visit our home page at <http://www.tug.ca> >Ph: (416) 606-5960 --- Fx: (416) 495-0100 >mailto:leo@tug.ca
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