Print Server Appliances that Spool? 60
man_ls asks: "I have recently run across the need for a network print server appliance, that can spool the data it is given and send it slower than 10 mbps to the printer. A client of mine has an Intermec label printer, with an internal processor too slow to accept data directly from the network without being buffered. Due to the system the client is running (OpenVMS) it must be connected to the network, it can't be local on one of the servers. Any ideas of a small print server box that can act like a spooler?"
Well hate to say it but... (Score:2)
(Given that the printer supports postscript or has opensource(ish) drivers)
Re:Well hate to say it but... (Score:2)
It's an intermec, unless he can hack code he's screwed for that kind of solution.
Re:Well hate to say it but... (Score:1)
I've used an old P75 with Linux for driving similar printers. Keep it simple with just a minimal install and a small hard drive should be big enough.
Re:Well hate to say it but... (Score:1)
Re:Well hate to say it but... (Score:2)
Dedicated servers (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Dedicated servers (Score:2)
Re:Dedicated servers (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Dedicated servers (Score:1)
Re:Dedicated servers (Score:3, Informative)
Poster was looking for a print spooler (not a print server), that has some kind of configurable output rate throttling; none of which is supported in the devices you listed.
they all do (Score:2)
The question is: how much spooling do you need? If 256k is enough, then any of the little boxes (like this one [linksys.com]) will do just fine. If you need a few megs, you can still find little "print boxes" that do what you need, but they'll be "workgroup spoolers", and they'll cost more. If it's absolutely essential that the job leave the client machine ASAP (i.e. it's an old mainframe and there
I think I used to have your job... (Score:3, Funny)
I ended up writing a bunch o' custom Intermec Printer Drivers for linux and using one of their prolific Linux boxen to act as a spooling server. Wasn't that bad to work out. The hardest bit was writing the Intermec drivers... I had to reverse engineer those. Fortunately it was a custom app and only printed a half dozen types of documents.
If you're interested I could share the "reverse engineering" technique... more of a quick hack actually. Heck, the whole thing was a clever hack... I hate clever.
Re:I think I used to have your job... (Score:3, Interesting)
It is possible therefore for a programmer to work just like they would with postscript. You could create a converter for some other format such as HTML and dump that to IPL. That's a
Re:I think I used to have your job... (Score:1)
Clever is too much work, I just set my printers to Generic/Text.
If you really want to do graphical label design to create templates for your applications, there is a Windows package from Loftware. You can create the labels in their LLM software, set up the print serve
Re:I think I used to have your job... (Score:2)
*Ahem* The customer didn't want a plain text label. They also couldn't have the ActiveX control. Rather than say screw you, you get text 'cuz I'm lazy... I figured out how to give them *both* graphics, flexability, AND integration with their
Re:I think I used to have your job... (Score:1)
My reference to graphical is in the DESIGN stage. Having a pretty little window where you can drag and drop various label objects. It's not a requirement, but it's nice when you want to pass the design work the the users and free up your programmers for
Re:I think I used to have your job... (Score:2)
You think I designed the labels? Nah. Some user did that. My job was to integrate the label designs into the existing system which couldn't make use of ActiveX controls. So my reference to graphical was in the DESIGN stage. It was a requi
Experienced with Intermec label printers (Score:2)
A Windows software package could graphically design the label and create fields (merge codes) then you exported that to an EBCDIC or ANSI datafile. Then you pasted the code into a variable in the code. You output the variable text to the printer and it would load into RAM on the printer. Then you just sent data associated with the label fields. The pr
Get a Fiery rip box (Score:2)
Even better, they take standard PC133 RAM, so buy the fiery with the lowest memory config you can get, and stick a few 256 meg DIMM's in there, and you will have an awesome print server.
Here (Score:3, Interesting)
Should be pretty straightforward... (Score:2)
If you are, then you need to use a computer as a print server.
-Adam
Trying to answer your question (Score:3, Insightful)
Why not just setup a simple print spooler (samba/netatalk) which will deliver files to a queue. Then you can write a little perl script to read the file in at a known data rate (while
Re:Trying to answer your question (Score:2)
No, they actually do have that. If you have a paralell HP Jetdirect for example, it will not be printing at 100 Mbs it will print at 9600 or 19200 but you can change that by teneting into the box and changing it. The interface is simple. All print servers will do that.
Re:Trying to answer your question (Score:2)
Well, sure they will, but that's not typically what you'd call a spooler. At least in my experience, a spooler is a device which takes the print job as fast as the client can send it then feeds it off to the printing device at its speed.
Re:Trying to answer your question (Score:2)
Name me one print spooler that can feed print to an HP laser printer at 100 Mbps. Read the specs on your printers. You will see the 'spooler' catches the data at network speed, but that is not the speed of transmission to the printer. There aren't any 100MB printers out t
Re:Trying to answer your question (Score:2)
>At least in my experience, a spooler is a device which takes the print
>job as fast as the client can send it then feeds it off
>to the printing device at its speed.
Name me one print spooler that can feed print to an HP laser printer at 100 Mbps.
Are you agreeing with me vehemently or did you miss the anticedent 'printing device' to the pronoun 'its' in "then feeds it off to the printing device at its speed"?
Re:Trying to answer your question (Score:2)
Yes!
I missed the antecedent, I will review
Re:Trying to answer your question (Score:2)
Of course, others have suggested bandwidth throttling, which is better because you can fine-tune it, but if it can accept data at 10MB/s then a $3 card [pricewatch.com] would do the trick.
Suggestion (Score:1)
A simple solution (Score:1)
Or would that still be too fast?
Low Tech Solution (Score:3, Interesting)
Those hubs are probably sitting on the trash pile of countless IT departments right now. You might be able to pick one up on e-bay...
Rudy
Re:Low Tech Solution (Score:2)
Will that work? Are you sure?
I've seen machines that you could telnet into for configuration, and they would loose data. TCP ensures delivery, but it doesn't assure that the implimentation on the other end has a buffer big enough to store what is delivered. In this case, the buffer filled up, but the TCP implimentation happily continued accepting packets, and writing them to the buffer. As it was a circular buffer this ment data was lost anyway.
Worked just fine for humans, but when we tried to automat
Re:Low Tech Solution (Score:2)
Whether it will work or not is highly dependent on circumstances. But it's definitely worth a try. It'll be a lot cheaper and a lot easier to do than just about any other solution (short of buying a new printer!).
Re:Low Tech Solution (Score:1)
Re:Low Tech Solution (Score:2)
True, but in the real world, that hardware is out there, and you might have it. Indeed because it is easy to write, and costs are critical I wouldn't be surprized if you have it, and since it works in the average case you don't realize it was broken.
Though in this particular case IIRC there was some hardware acceleration involved, so it wouldn't surprize me if the hardware was overwritting buffers while the CPU was still interupted by the packet coming in.
what we use (Score:2)
Axis [axis.com] print servers... they can be flakey at times.. so i would recomend whatever you decide on order 3, just for backup purposes
Re:what we use (Score:1)
I don't know which printer the submitter is using, but our 3400's work just fine with jetdirect units. Both our AS/400 and PC's can print just fine, at any speed they want.
Jetdirects have the advantage of being 20 dollars on ebay, compared to several hundred for the Intermec/Axis units as well.
Re:what we use (Score:2)
Re:what we use (Score:2)
I have never had an issue with an Axis box that couldnt be fixed without factory r
Re:what we use (Score:2)
As analysts we all know that if he runs ANY size company, he should get the item approved. However, if he truly runs it he doesn't NEED anybodys approval. Just thought I would mention that as it is a common bite to have owners throw junk technology into your network.
I have never had an issue with an Axis box that couldnt be fixed without factory resetting it. I am guessing you
Re:what we use (Score:2)
Re:what we use (Score:2)
We live in extremely different worlds. I have nothing 'coming back from the field'. I would not know why something would come back with no documentation as I allow nothing to go out without documentation and the documentation is stored centrally on one of them new fangled file servers. If I had something come back with no documen
Re:what we use (Score:2)
Re:what we use (Score:2)
clarification (Score:2)
Thanks for the help everyone.
Re:clarification (Score:2)
Re:clarification (Score:1)
Re:clarification (Score:1)
First I'd recommend that you check your flow control, it sounds like you have it turned off.
Re:clarification (Score:2)
cheap on ebay, worth a try.
Re:clarification (Score:2)
You'll tie up stuff on the client end, however, your local OS could/should be doing spooling so it's not tying up the entire machine at that point.
I know how to do that at the IP level (traffic shaping and/or rate limiting) that is production ready. I believe there are projects to do that at the ethernet level (to control the speed of the ethernet frame
Offtopic question related to printing (Score:3, Interesting)
Has anyone here ever done this ?
The purpose is to make a linux box that can emulate an older printer to a legacy computer, take the files to be printed and possibly modify them and send them to a modern printer (such as a network or USB interface).
Re:Offtopic question related to printing (Score:2)
1 - PC emulating serial printer from an IBM DisplayWrite (current-loop). Recover documents and convert to standard format.
1a - direct media i/o from PC to legacy system
(8" floppy controller and driver software for PC, including target filesystem - CP/M, Wang OIS, Philips P2000, IBM DisplayWrite, AM Comp/Edit and Comp/Set). Custom PC controller card.
2 - Parallel interface to mini. Emulate Lino 202N Photocomposer. Recover documents and print onto laserprinter.
3 - Same as (2), but CG8600, and APS u5.
Netgear Print Server Device (Score:2)
Check out some Netgear Print Servers [netgear.com] that are priced for the home user market. Basically you connect your parallel port printer into the little box and that box connects to the network via WiFi or standard cabling. It runs a standard LPD service (i.e. unix printer daemon) and you can easily print to it from linux, OS X, windows and probably a bunch of others as well. No SMB sharing required.
As to whether or not these will handle
ETHERNET TO SERIAL SOLUTION FOR INTERMEC A SERIES (Score:1)
umm, maybe I'm missing something.. (Score:2)