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

[Stephen Hoffman]

On 2019-03-25 19:11:02 +0000, Mark Berryman said:

> On 3/25/19 10:15 AM, Paul Anderson wrote:
>> 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.
> 
> Are these the same folks who said "OSI will replace TCP/IP"?
> or "Groups with guitars are on their way out"?
> or "Everything that can be invented has been invented"?
> (of course, those sayings are now considered apocryphal).
> 
> Every network printer I've looked at in the last 5 years supports IPP. 
> Most, if not all, support IPP Everywhere.  With IPP Everywhere, one can 
> always query the printer for its URI.
> 
> I also haven't seen one that won't print both PDF and postscript 
> natively but I believe PDF is the only thing that is mandated.
> 
>> 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.
> 
> It seems to me that DCPS has features that CUPS does not have (forms 
> and libraries, setup modules, printing with altered margins, etc.).  On 
> the other hand, CUPS allows one to print to another host running CUPS 
> that happens to have a directly attached printer that you are trying to 
> print to.
> 
> My opinion: add IPP support to DCPS quickly.
> Consider porting CUPS to VMS somewhere down the road.
> 
> Mark Berryman


-- 
Pure Personal Opinion | HoffmanLabs LLC