SUMMARY: HP Color DeskJet printers

From: Tim Buller (buller@math.ukans.edu)
Date: Wed Jan 08 1997 - 10:41:22 CST


My question:
 
> Has anyone used one of the HP's Color DeskJet printers from a sun or
> other unix box? We have an appletalk network, and CAP software
> installed; would this faciliate color printing from a box? Do we need to
> get some sort of printer server for the thing? I'm looking at a catalog
> that has a HP DeskJet 870Cse which is "network-friendly"... what does
> that mean?
 
The answer(s):

Here are the options I presented to the powers that be:

#1) DeskJet 870Cse (~$500) connected to our appletalk network. The unix
boxes would print to this through CAP. No postscript, and I don't know
much about CAP yet, so I'm not sure how the driver would work from unix.
Cheapest, but iffy option. For more info:
http://hpcc998.external.hp.com:80/peripherals/printers/dj870cse.html

#2) Same printer with HP JetDirect EX print server (~$475); this would
attach to our Ethernet (10Base-T and Coax ports provided) allowing all of
our boxes, macs and PCs to print to it directly. I think this would be our
best bet, but you see that the print server costs as much as the printer
again.

#3) DeskJet 1600, has built-in networking, is faster, etc. than the 870.
~$1350. See:
http://hpcc998.external.hp.com:80/peripherals/printers/dj1600cm.html

#4) DeskJet 1600CM, above printer with Postscript support, ~$2000

Here are some comments I received from folks on the sun-managers list:

----

Date: Tue, 7 Jan 1997 04:35:35 PM From: Matthew Stier <Matthew.Stier@MCI.Com> If the JetDirect adapter you chose for it can support TCP/IP (probably concurrently with AppleTalk) you can download HP's JetAdmin software from their website and connect to it from your Sun workstation. (You would make the printer a local print spool on the Sun host, just like a serial or parallel connected printer, but the connection medium would be ethernet.

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Date: Tue, 7 Jan 1997 14:13:02 -0700 (MST) From: Tim Carlson <tim@santafe.edu>

Got a 1200CM sitting on the net that we print to with CAP. Works like a charm. CAP is running on a 4.1.3 box and the 2.5 clients just spool stuff to the 4.1.3 box that then appletalks it to the printer. No problems. (note: the 1200CM is the older model of the 1600CM)

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Date: Wed, 08 Jan 1997 07:39:42 -0500 From: Ken Franco <kfranco@gdeb.com> Tim, In order to use a HP printer with a unix system, the HP must have a HPJet Direct daughter board with the proper software. If you are using appletalk, you more than likely have the daughter board. Check to see if there are multiple ports on the back of the board ie rj45 etc.. Provided those ports are there, you have the right board. Next you will need the software. This can be downloaded for solaris or sunO/S from: http://www.hp.com/cposupport/indexes1/sol2xd.html .

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Date: Wed, 08 Jan 1997 10:50:18 +1100 From: Simon Gibbons <simong@aifs.org.au> Hi Tim, We have a HP DeskJet 1200C - a reliable (but not fast) color printer. It is plugged in to the network hub (10baseT) and we can print to it directly from Unix. More importantly, our desktop machines are Macs and the printer appeared in the chooser without any extra installation. There is a quick setup for each of the Macs which only involves choosing the correct PPD file. We don't use CAP, but we use Helios Ethershare which is very similar. Using Admintool on the same machine as the Ethershare software (SS20 running Solaris 2.4), the printer was installed as a System V printer of unknown type with the port: /export/software/es/lprdevdir/pj1 (which is a null file). This is the printcap entry (the printer is known as PJ1): pj1:\ :lp=/export/software/es/lprdevdir/pj1:\ :if=/export/software/es/if/pj1:\ :of=/export/software/es/psof:\ :sh:\ :mx#0:\ :sf:\ :du#0:\ :sd=/var/spool/lp/pj1:\ :af=/export/software/es/printer.acct:\ :lf=/var/spool/lp/pj1/pj1-log:

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Date: Tue, 7 Jan 1997 13:38:58 -0800 From: Celeste Stokely <celeste@celestial.stokely.com> I haven't tried this, but I hear that you can follow these instructions and get it to work with Ghostscript off a Sun serial port. Check out: http://www.cs.ucla.edu/~goldman/print.html

(Note: this looks interesting, but I don't know if I'm willing to bank on it)

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Date: Tue, 7 Jan 1997 16:11:56 -0500 From: "Craig L. Gruneberg" <clg@csph.psu.edu> I just bought a HP 870Cse for use on my Mac at home and the only thing I have seen on cursory exam concerning "network-friendly" might be a mention of a high-speed serial port ( in addition to the Mac port and the parallel PC port. ) I'll check the manual and get back to you but it looks like you still need something like their JetDirect Print Servers which cost about 60% of what the printer cost! When I first read that these printers were "network-friendly" I too hoped they had some low cost way to stick one on an Ethernet but that doesn't seem to be the case. ----

Thanks to all,

Tim

==== Tim Buller buller@math.ukans.edu Math Department Systems Manager Snow Hall 643 University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045 913-864-7311



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