[Info-vax] DCPS V2.7 and Brother printers

[Paul Anderson]

On 3/25/19 11:28 AM, Stephen Hoffman wrote:

> IPP is a far more recent iteration of printing, and IPP has some 
> definite benefits over what went before.  Among other benefits, IPP a 
> way for the host to ask the printer what it's capable of providing. 
> Secure connections via IPPS, too.
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Printing_Protocol

I noted this line in the article:

> IPP is the basis of several printer logo certification programs including AirPrint, IPP Everywhere, and Mopria and is supported by over 98% of printers sold today.

Really?  98%?  Back when we worked for HP, the folks who implemented IPP 
V1 in the printers said they weren't going to update IPP at all, as they 
thought IPP was not going to have much of a future.  Maybe V1 was "good 
enough" and that's what's in their printers today.

I found it to be a little difficult to find out the URI of the HP 
printers we have here at VSI.  Not in the documentation, not on the 
printer configuration page.  There's a utility you can run to query your 
network for IPP printers that gave me the URI for two of them, and one 
worked from VMS with the IPP support in VSI TCP/IP.

So we could add IPP support to DCPS.

We could also port CUPS to VMS.

We could add support to DCPS as we did in the past, but we're not owned 
by a printer company any more.  That makes it much harder to add support 
for new printers.  Plus I'm working on the new network stack and don't 
have the cycles for doing much with DCPS.

Suggestions welcome.

Paul