HP LaserJet

I'm thinking of buying an HP 1022N LaserJet. It sports PCL 5e protocol but is too new to appear in the list of printers in OS4.

Does anyone know of a printer driver in OS4 that can talk PCL 5e?

@tonyw

I've just bought an HP Laserjet 1230 and it works fine with Workbench, Turboprint and PageStream. OS4 rocks !

@tonyw

You might have trouble with this printer. It's similar to the laserjet 1020 which someone else already tested with no luck. The firmware has to be uploaded to the printer on power up and it uses some ZjStream protocol for communications. See Linux's foo2zjs driver for details.

We really need people with these printers writing AmigaOS drivers for them. In this case you could probably find an existing PCL5e driver and tack ZjStream onto it (and add the firmware upload).

Hans

@Hans

Ah, so it's one of them! Thanks for that warning.

[just another means of locking the customer into Windows]

@tonyw

I would stick with PS capable printers. Imho, these are usually supported by the generic "Postscript" driver "out of the box".

An idea: to use "ghostscript" internal printer drivers (given gs that comes with OS4 supports it, including that "Zenographics" stuff mentioned in this thread) . "gs" has a lot printer drivers compiled in ("gs -h" will give you the list). Then just look into the list of all available output devices. Afair, redirecting "gs" output into "par:" does the job for parallel printers (I could do it with old ones such as epson stylus color 200 and canon bjc250 on my A1200). Turboprint can use gs for printing as well (if my memory doesn't betray me).

Maybe it's a good idea to compile as many printers as possible into gs and get at least some support for many printers. Someone from Hyperion? Or skilled porter (SpotUp? anyone?).

Edit:
As it is described in "foo2zjs" link it isn't "locking into windblows" stuff

@tonyw

Only a few days ago I got a 1022nw for it's wireless feature. Sadly, that's not working & HP are going to be getting slapped wrists for the service I've received.

Anyway, back on track. I didn't have any intention of using this on my A1 but give me a few days & I'll see what I can find out. I THINK the only difference is the wireless that this unit has so I should be able to give you some relevant info.

FuZion.

@tonyw

Some joy, but not a lot so far.

I connected the printer to a USB port & immediately, the USB info window popped up on Workbench with the printer name & the like detailed. Nice.

Popped into NotePad, typed some junk, pressed print, printer woke up, paper few through, nothing printed. Hmmm....

Loaded a 1 page PDF file into AmiPDF, pressed print, selected Workbench Default & about 25 pages of blank came through with only the first page reading
Quote:
Looks to me like it's just some settings.

If anyone can throw any ideas my way I'll be happy to test them out. I have quite a lot on tonight but I'll be around & checking this place every so often.

FuZion.

@FuZion

From here this looks as if you used the PostScript printer
driver with a printer that doesnt understand PostScript
(ergo it prints it as text).

@FuZion

Yeah, as Detlef said, that is the normal start to a Postscript file. you've got the Postscript driver selected.

@tonyw

I have just copied the "HP LaserJet" & "HP LaserJet+" drivers from Storage/Printers & selected each of these in Prefs/Printers. I have attempted a print with AmiPDF but I get a Reaper for each.

Task 0x6ff62f60 ("UHCI Controller Task Unit 1"). Pressing Continue doesn't work, pressing Ignore closes the Reaper window but the printer still doesn't print.

I have the crash log here if someone would like it, let me know. Also, after about 4 mins after saving the crash log I got a shell output "Ghostscript interpreter output". I've saved this too.


@tonyw

Just a personal note here. I have received more of the worst customer service I've ever received from HP. Now I'm sure thousands of people get good service from them every day but I'm returning this printer & doubt I'll use HP for a long time now.

FuZion.

@tonyw

You asked for a PCL 5e printer driver?
Just checked the releasenotes of the OS3.9 NDK:

HP_LaserJet 44.6 (21.8.99)
[...]
- Now allows for 600 DPI graphics printing with densities
5, 6 and 7. Note that this requires a PCL 5e compliant
printer, such as the LaserJet 4.

@tonyw

Personally I use the HP_LaserJet_4 driver for PCL5e. I'm never quite sure about the other models (especially the very generic HP_LaserJet variety), but the LJ4 driver works great with my LJ1015.

edit I've just taken a look at the datasheet, and it looks like you may be out of luck. The LJ1022 isn't PCL5e compatible:

From the datasheet:
Languages and fonts: Host-based printing

ie. this is a "dumb" printer that you will probably never see an Amiga driver for.

edit 2 Hmm, although linuxprinting.org says it is PCL5e.. but it doesn't work with USB1.1.

Either way it is probably best to choose a different printer!

Chris

@FuZion

Is the printer attached to a self-powered (not bus-powered)
USB hub? Without such a hub USB on A1 may be unstable (it provides
not as much power as may be needed by some device).

Another possible cause for the problem is an old bug in all
HP drivers which was detected after release of OS4Final.
But until now this was not reported to cause crashes with
usbprinter.device, only with a1parallel.device in some
cases.

@TetiSoft

Yeah, it's plugged into the mains power.

FuZion.

@Chris

Yes, there is some inconsistency out there. I think I might increase my budget and go for Postscript (perhaps QMS/Minolta).

@Detlef

Thanks, that was the answer I originally wanted.