Re: tlug: Be_careful!!! HPLaserJet4000N_Final_Solution

[kls@example.com (Ken Schwarz)]

> If anybody ever feels like tossing a working postscript printer out the
> window, please give it to me instead :-)  My office printer is an Epson
> LP-8300 and it's not Postscript and there's nothing in Ghostscript for it,
> so I'm screwed for printing under Linux.  If I want to print a file, I
> have to park it in my Windows 95 partition, open it with a Windows app,
> and print it.  The guy across from me who uses FreeBSD has the same
> problem, but worse: he doesn't have Windows on his machine at all, so he
> just plain can't print.
> 
> If anybody ever does run across a Ghostscript driver for this printer,
> pleasepleasepleaseplease tell me where I can get it :-)

Jonathan,

What language(s) does the LP-8300 speak?  Something proprietary to
Epson?  Usually clone printers emulate popular devices like HP PCL
printers, so you just need to find out which one it copies and use the
driver for that device.  If I had no manual, I'd just start with the
LJ4 which is pretty generic now and if it doesn't work, try LJ3p which
is a little bit older and simpler PCL implementation (300 DPI only).

If the Epson printer has some smarts it will examine the initial bytes
of the print job and figure out the language based on simple
heuristics which can distinguish PS from PCL most of the time. (Most
PCL jobs begin with HP's printer meta language or <esc>E.)

The clones sometimes have special paper handling features which
require proprietary drivers to manage conveniently, so you might be
out of luck there.

- Ken
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