Tech Arsenal 1/Tech Arsenal (Arsenal Computer).ISO/tek-07/blts893.zip/EZFAX.TXT

Text File | 1993-04-21 | 12KB | 257 lines

Compatibility Bulletin

Product Reviewed:    Calculus EZ-FAX v3.52 from Calculus, Inc
Classification:      Fax Sharing Software
Date:                4/12/93
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Compatibility Statement
Calculus EZ-FAX v3.52 is compatible with LANtastic NOS v4.xx and
v5.xx.

Product Overview
The EZ-FAX product (advanced system) consists of an 8-bit ISA fax
board and the accompanying software for:

Sending Faxes: EZ-FAX supports sending plain text files and HP
LaserJet formatted files (by first converting them into an EZ-FAX
format). You can also scan and store hardcopy documents into EZ-FAX
to be faxed later. You have the option of specifying the number of
retries and scheduling a fax to go out at a later time. By a
concept known as "virtual printer device", EZ-FAX can emulate a
printer to capture print streams produced by an application and
send the output as faxes.

Receiving Faxes: EZ-FAX is capable of receiving in-coming faxes.
You can then 'edit' the fax using a graphics editor, e.g. PC
Paintbrush or Dr. Halo. Calculus has provided several conversion
utilities to convert fax images (in G3F Group 3 Fax format) to a
format that can be fed into the graphics editor. In addition, EZ-
FAX allows you to view a fax on your terminal if you have a
graphics adapter.

Monitoring activities: EZ-FAX provides a console utility (the ezf
menu) to help you check for fax errors, maintain a phone directory,
etc. A separate utility called ezfmodem is also provided which
allows you to share the telephone line between EZ-FAX and an
internal or external data modem or a telephone set.

Product Installation Notes
The first step in setting up your EZ-FAX system is to complete the
hardware installation on the PC acting as the fax server. You will
need to pay attention to these items:

o    The EZ-FAX card with its high bandwidth coprocessor chip.

o    A dedicated single-line telephone line to be connected to the
     EZ-FAX    card.

o    (optional) Scanners, which can be installed on the fax server
     or a      workstation.

o    Printers. EZ-FAX recognizes 4 types of printers:

     ■    Network Spooled Printer: any printer on the network (
          e.g. \\<servername>\@printer ). You need to specify to
          EZ-FAX which printers on the network it can use from the
          Change Options/Network Printers screen within their
          INSTALL utility. The network printers are then referred
          by EZ-FAX as NSPOOL0, NSPOOL1, etc. 2 modes of printing
          faxes on a network printer are supported by EZ-FAX, and
          are documented in Appendix A Network Printing in the EZ-
          FAX LAN Installation Guide:

          Direct Network Printing (corresponds to the Network
          Printer Device parameter in Change Options/User Options):
          Do not redirect that port at the network level (i.e. that
          port cannot be used by other applications on the fax
          server). Let the EZ-FAX Spooler talk directly to
          \\<servername>\@printer, or NSPOOLn.

          Captured Fax Server Printing (corresponds to the Spooled
          Printer Device parameter in Change Options/User Options
          ): Need to redirect at the network level.

     ■    Fax Server Spooled Printer (also corresponds to the
          Spooled Printer Device parameter in Change Options/User
          Options if the printer is connected as a local printer to
          the fax server): one of the printers installed on the fax
          server may be designated as the fax server spooled
          printer, referred by EZ-FAX as SPOOL. The EZ-FAX print
          spooler manages this printer.

     ■    Local Spooled Printer: A printer on a workstation can be
          configured as a Local Spooled Printer using the DOS PRINT
          command. This printer is referred to by EZ-FAX as LSPOOL.
          On LANtastic, since local spooling is disabled once
          network despooling is enabled, this option is not
          available.

     ■    Local printer: you can refer to the local printers on a
          workstation within EZ-FAX by their usual names, e.g.
          LPT1, LPT2, etc.

     To use a printer belonging to any of these types within EZ-
     FAX, you need to first set it up as a logical printer through
     the Change Options/Printers screen in the INSTALL utility.

o    Expanded memory managers: EZ-FAX only runs in expanded, not
     extended  memory. See Memory Requirements section below for
     more details.

The key is to fit all these together. You need to:

o    Avoid conflicts in the hardware settings for the network
     adapter, the scanner and the memory manager hardware (if
     applicable). The I/O address and interrupt level of the EZ-FAX
     card will be configured automatically according to the
     parameters you specify from INSTALL during the software
     installation.

o    Configure all the devices properly in your config.sys. During
     the EZ-FAX software installation, you need to enter the
     configurations of all of the above mentioned devices into the
     system. Then, your config.sys and autoexec.bat in the root
     directory of your boot drive will be changed accordingly. As
     a result, config.sys may contain the following lines:

     FILES=35
     BUFFERS=20
     DEVICE=c:\dos\emm386.exe ram x=d000-d800 REM: for the memory
manager
     DEVICE=c:\ezf\sjdriver.sys REM: for the scanners

     If you are using a network adapter that uses RAMBASE (e.g.
     Artisoft 2Mbps or some non-Artisoft adapters with
     LANtastic/AI), do not forget to exclude the RAMBASE address
     used by the adapter on the DEVICE line for the memory manager
     in config.sys.

Details about how to set up the directories and user access for
using EZ-FAX on a LANtastic network are described in Chapter 4 of
the EZ-FAX LAN Installation Guide. Each workstation on the network
can then share these facilities for faxing by logging onto the
server and putting the EZ-FAX directory in its DOS path. In
addition, these 3 variables need to be set in your DOS environment:

     SET EZFPATH=<full path of EZ-FAX system directory>
     SET EZFCPATH=<EZ-FAX config directory if diff. from EZFPATH>
     SET EZFDPATH=<EZ-FAX data directory if diff. from EZFPATH>

Memory Requirements
Before you can use EZ-FAX, you need to load several TSR (terminate,
stay resident) programs:

On the fax server:
     ezfbs.exe - requires 166K of conventional memory. (or 34K + 10
     EMS pages)

On each workstation to provide virtual printer device (optional):
     ezfbw.exe - requires 83K of conventional memory (or 7K + 6
     EMS       pages)

In addition, the ezf menu requires 160K of conventional memory,
while displaying faxes from within ezf needs 90K more. Automatic
use of expanded memory is provided as an install option. You may
also want to refer to chapter 5 of the EZ-FAX for Networks Addendum
for more details.

Printing

For incoming faxes: You can print them out manually through the
Received Documents option from the ezf menu onto a selected logical
printer. Also, you can program EZ-FAX to automatically print
incoming faxes out on a printer. Of course, you need to define the
logical printers accessible to EZ-Fax first (which may belong to
any of the 4 printer types described in the previous section)
during installation.

For outgoing faxes: A 'phantom' printer port can be established by
specifying one of the 'LPTn's (usually LPT3 by default) as the
Virtual Printer Device. You can then enter your application program
(e.g. Wordperfect), create you fax document and then send it by
'printing' to the virtual device. The EZ-FAX User's Guide contains
a whole chapter about how to use EZ-FAX with other popular
applications. When using this feature, the LPTn port involved
should not be redirected to any resource at the network level.

Product Execution Notes
A few tips regarding the day-to-day administration of EZ-FAX on the
network:

1.   Make sure that SHARE is being loaded after REDIR and before
     SERVER. If SHARE is loaded before REDIR, NOS 4.0 "locks" all
     of the printer resources, even the ones that are not being
     used, thus interfering with the virtual printer device. The
     NOS 4.0 installation may not have set up the sequence of
     loading REDIR, SHARE and SERVER in this order, so you should
     check your autoexec.bat/startnet.bat if you get a sharing
     violation when printing to the virtual printer device.

2.   Since the TSR consumes memory on the workstation, we recommend
     that you only load the TSR immediately before creating a fax,
     and then unload it immediately after if there is not enough
     memory on your workstation to keep EZFBW loaded all the time.
     For example, the following batch file can be used to automate
     this process on each workstation that uses Wordperfect with
     EZ-FAX:

     rem WP.BAT
     rem ====
     ezfbw   REM: load the TSR
     wp      REM: invoke your application
     ezfmodem unload REM: unload the TSR immediately

3.   The time it takes to 'print' a fax is dependent on the number
     of pages of the fax document.

4.   A problem was reported while using EZ-FAX with DesqView, a
     popular windowing software. Running EZ-FAX under Desqview is
     not recommended. 5. We've found that it does take a few
     seconds for ezfbs to be loaded into memory before ezfmodem can
     run. You may want to include these lines in the autoexec.bat
     file for the fax server:

     rem AUTOEXEC.BAT on fax server
     rem ===============
     ezfbs
     wait REM: or other utilities to wait a few seconds
     ezfmodem srfax

6.   Calculus recommends that if you have programmed EZ-FAX to
     automatically print out incoming faxes to a printer, you
     should let the EZ-FAX spooler control all regular print jobs
     going to that printer. Otherwise, you may risk getting
     incoming faxes in the middle of a regular print job if they
     are controlled by different spoolers.

7.   A trouble-shooting tip if you notice that faxes are suddenly
     not going out: if the EZ-FAX server loses connection to the
     network printer machine, all faxes that occur after the first
     print job (regular or for incoming faxes) on the queue will be
     stacked up. You will need to bring up the printer again or
     delete the print job to stop it from holding up the queue.

8.   Instead of using a scanner, you can use another fax machine to
     input documents into EZ-FAX by faxing to it.

9.   EZ-FAX v3.52 advanced system supports a DOS and a Windows
     interface. The Windows interface has not yet been tested in-
     house within Artisoft.

Version History
02/01/92: EZ-FAX v3.52 tested for compatibility with LANtastic
          v4.x.
04/04/93: EZ-FAX v3.52 tested for compatibility with LANtastic
          v5.0.

Vendor Information
Calculus, Inc. 1761 West Hillsboro Blvd., Deerfield Beach, FL
33442. Tel: [phone] Fax: [phone]

ARTISOFT, Inc. makes no warranties as to the completeness or
accuracy of this document. LANtastic is a trademark of ARTISOFT,
Inc. Brand names, company names, and product names are trademarks
or registered trademarks of their respective companies.