Color Printers

[Mr. Barry W. Webb]

We have eight IRISes that are on the same XNS ethernet.  We don't use a
color printer but we do use a single line printer for all the machines.
The configuration and software is as follows:

The printer is attached to a serial port on one IRIS.  I have used the 'lpadmin'
command to define the line printer spooler to the system.  On that IRIS I have
written a program that is started in /etc/rc.local and waits for connections
from the other machines on a particular socket.  Once the connection is
established, the program reads the data, creates a temporary file and issues
an 'lp' command to submit the file to the line printer spooling system.
Upon completion it again waits for another connection.

On the other machines I wrote a program that accepts a file's name as the
command line argument, establishes the connection to the line printer machine,
and sends the file.

The arrangement seems to work quite well.  I have even extended the second
program to PCs that are also on the network so they have access to the remote
printer.  Our plans are to switch to TCP/IP in the near future so we can
expand the network to include a VAX, 4 SELs and 7 Symbolics.  Once this
is accomplished and the IRIS programs rewritten (does anyone have such
programs they would like to share, I'd be glad to share mine if anyone is
interested) I hope to have access to all line and laser printers that are
in the configuration.

Barry Webb
Lockheed Aeronautical Systems Company
bwebb at gelac.arpa