OS/2 Shareware BBS: 36 Tips/36-Tips.zip/djet_os2.doc

Text File | 1996-01-16 | 12KB | 231 lines

                 The HP Deskjet Printer Series and OS/2

            Some Hints, Tips and Frequently Asked Questions

  Compiled by Bruce Probst [71154,3171], Assistant SysOp, HPPER forum

DISCLAIMER: I don't work for HP or IBM, and none of the statements
contained herein should be considered "official" or anything other than
my own experiences and observations.  Suggestions for expansion or
corrections are welcomed.

For "official" Technical Support for OS/2 printer drivers, contact IBM
directly (GO OS2SUPP).

(NB: The Deskjet 1200C, 1200C/PS, 1600C and 1600CM printers are classed
as "laserjets" and are covered by the laserjet and PostScript drivers
respectively, and are not discussed further in this document.)

OS/2 2.x
========

For OS/2 v2.1, the only driver available is the HPDJPM.DRV, sometimes
known as the "specific" deskjet driver (as opposed to the more generic
"OMNI" driver supplied with Warp).  This driver supports all the model
3xx portable deskjets and the 5xx series (which includes the original
Deskjet and Deskjet Plus), with the exception of the Deskjet 540 (with
or without colour option).  For this printer, use the 520 driver for
monochrome only and the 500C driver for monochrome/colour.  None of the
more recent 6xx or 8xx deskjets, or the portable deskjet 400, are
directly supported; you will need to use the closest 5xx or 3xx model
driver.

HPDJPM.DRV is only a 16-bit driver, and has a number of limitations; in
particular, it has very poor greyscale and colour capabilities.  The
driver does not support internal fonts, downloaded soft fonts or font
cartridges, so you must use either the bitmapped OS/2 system fonts or
ATM Type 1 scalable fonts when printing from OS/2 applications.

The latest version of this driver available for download is available as
the file HPDJET.ZIP in Library 23 of the OS2SUPP forum.  This version
provides "nominal" support of the 520 and 560C printers; I say "nominal"
because the 600x300 resolution is not supported, so the driver treats
the 520/560C no differently to a 510/550C.  The driver does fix a couple
of minor bugs over the version shipped with OS/2 so it is worth
downloading if you are not planning to upgrade to Warp.

OS/2 2.x printing has a number of differences to DOS printing.  The most
notable is that all 25 pins of a standard Centronics interface are used,
unlike DOS which only uses 18 (?) of the 25 pins.  Some cheap cables are
sold with these extra pins not wired to cut costs.  They will work fine
with DOS but will *not* work with OS/2.  Any decent "name" brand cable
will be fully wired and should be fine.

Another difference is that OS/2 2.x uses interrupts to control access to
the printer devices.  DOS doesn't care about interrupts; in fact for
many months my parallel port was configured to a non-existant IRQ and
DOS never complained.  OS/2, however, was a different story.  OS/2
requires that your LPT1 port be configured to IRQ7 and LPT2 be
configured to IRQ5.  Many sound cards come configured for IRQ7 as their
default and if this is the case you will be unable to print from OS/2,
or, at best, your printing will be very, very slow.  It is possible to
make OS/2 "share" the IRQ so that you can have two cards sharing the
same IRQ but this is not recommended as it will adversely affect the
performance of both devices.  Note that this interrupt scheme was
altered for Warp; see below.

For best performance you should have a parallel port that will support
bidirectional printing.  I don't think OS/2 printing will fail if your
port is not bidirectional but it may be very slow or cause other
problems.  Many of the recent deskjet models are designed for
bi-directional interfaces in any case.

(Note that if you have OS/2 2.11 with Fixpack XR_B099 or later applied,
you can install and use the "OMNI" driver as supplied with Warp; see
below.)

OS/2 Warp
=========

With Warp, IBM introduced a new printer driver scheme.  This is called
the "OMNI" driver, presumably so named because it supports many
different brands and models of printers.  (I don't know exactly how it
does this.)  Like the HPDJPM driver it does not support internal fonts
etc.; however unlike the older driver it is fully 32-bit in its
operations and has (in theory) much superior greyscaling and colour
depth controls.

The HPDJPM driver is still available with Warp.  It will not be
"automatically" installed by the OS/2 installation routine.  However, if
you look at the files on the Printer Driver Diskette #1 (or the
corresponding directory on the CD-ROM) you will see that the "specific"
driver is to be found there.  From the OS/2 drives object, you can
"drag-and-drop" this file to your desktop and OS/2 will automatically
create a new printer object using this driver.  You may then choose
either this driver or the OMNI driver as you prefer.  This version of
the HPDJPM driver is much newer than the one supplied in the file
HPDJET.ZIP described above, but it has not been enhanced in terms of
features and has all the same limitations.  I have been told by an IBM
developer that this driver will not be enhanced at all in the future;
all future development will be to the OMNI driver (or whatever may
replace that in the future).

There is no doubt that the OMNI driver is buggy in many ways (although
recent versions have demonstrated various improvements).  The
consequences of this bugginess seems to vary widely, however, depending
on your system and the applications you are using.  Speaking for myself
I have not noticed any significant problems with the OMNI driver.  I can
only suggest that you try it for yourself; if the results are not
satisfactory then try the HPDJPM driver.  If you do find that the OMNI
driver is not working on your system, be sure to let IBM know!

Another change in Warp, as hinted above, is that the interrupt method of
printing was changed to "polling".  This has the advantage that you can
overlap IRQs.  It has the disadvantage that it often simply doesn't
work; and even if it does work printing is slowed down significantly, at
least for the deskjets (other printer types may not be so severely
affected).  Fortunately it is easy to re-enable the old IRQ method of
printing by adding the /IRQ switch to your PRINT0x.SYS line in your OS/2
CONFIG.SYS file.  That is, look for a line like this:

    BASEDEV=PRINT01.SYS

and change it to:

    BASEDEV=PRINT01.SYS /IRQ

save the file and reboot your system.  (Note that if you have a
Microchannel PC, such as a PS/2, you will be using PRINT02.SYS, but
otherwise the procedure is identical.)  For more information consult the
online help in OS/2.  Note that making this change requires that your PC
have no IRQ overlaps, as for OS/2 2.x.

Aside from these difference the notes under OS/2 2.x apply equally to
Warp.

Windows under OS/2
==================

I am making no distinctions here between "OS/2 for Windows" and "OS/2
with Win-OS/2".  For printer drivers there *is* no difference.  If you
see a reference to "Win-OS/2 printer drivers" in IBM documentation, what
is really meant is standard Windows drivers; they are one and the same.
These notes are equally applicable to OS/2 2.1x and Warp.

When you install your OS/2 deskjet driver you will be asked if you want
to install the corresponding Windows driver.  The driver that will be
installed here is the Microsoft "universal" driver, which does not
support colour printing and has only indifferent greyscaling abilities.
For the colour deskjets, or if you want to use the HP deskjet driver
with a monochrome deskjet, you need to start up a Program Manager
session and run SETUP.EXE as if you were installing it into a normal
DOS/Windows environment.

Regardless of which Windows deskjet driver you use, some general rules
are applicable.  For best performance you want to *disable* the Print
Manager and "direct printing to port" options in Control Panel.  You
should connect the printer to the corresponding OS2 port, i.e., use
LPT1.OS2 rather than LPT1.  If you do not do this you are sending your
print job directly to the LPT port and your system will have to wait for
it to finish before you get access to your Windows application again.
By sending the job to the OS2 port you are sending it to the OS/2
spooler, which is far more efficient than Windows Print Manager.  Your
job will spool in the background and print when it's ready; in the
meantime you have almost immediate access to your application back.
(This is an example of the superior OS/2 multitasking at work, which is
one of the reasons you installed it in the first place, right?)  The
reason that you disable Print Manager is that if you don't your job will
be spooled by Print Manager (and you'll have to wait for it to finish),
and then sent to the OS/2 spooler where it will be spooled again.  This
is not harmful, as far as I'm aware, but it *is* dreadfully inefficient.

Incidentally you must always make sure that you have a corresponding
OS/2 printer driver setup along with your Windows driver.  If nothing
else you can use the IBMNULL driver supplied with OS/2.  The OS/2
spooler will not function properly if it doesn't detect an OS/2 driver
attached to the port that you want to print from.

Finally, note that by connecting the HP deskjet driver to an OS2 port,
you will disable the HP Status Monitor supplied with v5 and later of
that driver.  I am not sure if the Status Monitor will work even if you
connect the printer directly to the LPT port.  Personally, I've never
noticed the lack.

Some Frequently Asked Questions
===============================

Q.  Why is the Windows driver much better at colour printing than the
    OS/2 driver?

A.  Simply put, the OMNI driver needs improvement.  Hopefully future
    releases of this driver will get better.  Note that the OMNI driver
    is written by IBM, not HP.  Please do not hesitate to express your
    disappointment with the OMNI driver directly to IBM.

Q.  Why doesn't HP write its own OS/2 driver to match the Windows
    driver?

A.  HP don't seem to recognise OS/2 as a market worth pursuing, I'm
    afraid.

Q.  Where can I get the latest drivers?

A. On CompuServe, GO OS2SUPP, Lib.23.  IBM usually post these files to
   their other regular FTP and BBS sites as well.  Drivers will usually
   be posted in DSK format; to expand these files, you need the LOADDSKF
   utility, available on the OS/2 installation CD-ROM or it can be
   downloaded from any of the usual sites.  Sometimes, however, the
   drivers are posted in a standard ZIP file.

   If you are using ....        the file you want is ....

    OS/2 v2.1                    HPDJET.ZIP
    OS/2 v2.11                    XRP016.DSK  *
    OS/2 Warp (any version)        XRP013.DSK  **

*  You must have applied fixpak XR_B099 or later to use this driver.
** At the time of writing, the latest OMNI driver is in "beta" form, in
the file called OMNI457.ZIP.  This version is required if you want
support for the 660C or 850C deskjets.  Although officially a beta, it
is in my experience quite stable.  It will presumably be eventually
migrated by IBM into the official XRP013.DSK file.

-----------------------

This document's copyright belongs to the author, Bruce Probst.
Permission is granted to reproduce this document in any media so long as
content is not changed without express permission of the author.

Thu 07-12-1995