Subject: [os2genau_digest] No. 1063
From: Digest <deadmail>
To: "OS/2GenAu Digest"<deadmail>
Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2005 00:01:08 EST-10EDT,10,-1,0,7200,3,-1,0,7200,3600

**************************************************
Sunday 27 February 2005
 Number  1063
**************************************************

Subjects for today
 
1  Re:  Cable Select  was:- Success : Mike O'Connor <mikeoc at dodo dot com dot au>
2  Re:  Success : Mike O'Connor <mikeoc at dodo dot com dot au>
3  Re:  Success : Gavin Miller <gmi12896 at bigpond dot net dot au>
4   New Brother Printers : Dennis Nolan <dennik at swiftdsl dot com dot au>
5  Re:  BIOS & HDD's : Alan Duval <amoht at ozemail dot com dot au>
6  Re:  New Brother Printers : Ed Durrant <edurrant at bigpond dot net dot au>
7  Re:  BIOS & HDD's : Mike O'Connor <mikeoc at dodo dot com dot au>
8  Re:  New Brother Printers : Ed Durrant <edurrant at bigpond dot net dot au>
9  Re:  New Brother Printers : Kris Steenhaut <kris.steenhaut at hccnet.nl>

**= Email   1 ==========================**

Date:  Sat, 26 Feb 2005 23:45:28 +1000
From:  Mike O'Connor <mikeoc at dodo dot com dot au>
Subject:  Re:  Cable Select  was:- Success

Ed Durrant wrote:

> Robert Traynor (BobT) wrote:
>
>> I disagree, Cable Select does work.!
>>
>> I am running two Pentium 4 systems and one Pentium 3 and ALL are
>> on cable select.  To work, you must have a good motherboard AND
>> an 80 wire IDE cable. All computers here have two hard drives on
>> the first IDE channel and Cable Select works perfectly.
>
> The example given here is an old board with IDE not highspeed config, 
> so I would expect the 40 wire cable.
>
> Maybe Cable select has been fixed in the latest hi-speed IDE 
> incarnations, but I certainly had several occasions on OS/2 systems 
> where CS did not work reliably, especially, as I said when different 
> drive manufacturers were involved.
>
> Cheers/2

Hi Ed,

All the 80-wire cables are Cable-Select compatible.  With 40-wire cables 
it was mandatory to use a  CS-specific-cable, it didn't work with 
"ambiguous" 40-wire cables where the master on a channel could be 
connected to the intermediate connector and a slave to the end connector!

Have noticed quite a few HDDs are now shipped with the jumper preset to 
the CS position!

-- 
Regards,
Mike

Failed the exam for
--------------------
MCSE - Minesweeper Consultant and Solitaire Expert
--------------------
[ISP blocks *.exe, *.cmd, * dot com, *.bat, *.reg attachments]
[Please use zipped versions of above]

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

**= Email   2 ==========================**

Date:  Sun, 27 Feb 2005 01:06:49 +1000
From:  Mike O'Connor <mikeoc at dodo dot com dot au>
Subject:  Re:  Success

Alan Duval wrote:

> OK; here's my setup and what I did.
>
> ASUS  P3V133 motherboard.
> Pentium III   733 CPU
> 3 IDE HDD's
> 1.   Quantum 40G Primary (Was installed a couple of months ago by 
> local PC shop when previous one failed)
> 2.   Quantum 40G slave  (I installed this last week after previous one 
> failed) All jumpers removed as  they were in previous HDD and on 
> advice from local PC shop. Worked OK for the week prior to recent 
> troubles.
> 3.   Maxtor 20G secondary HDD. Has been installed for a couple of years.
> 4.   Sony CD reader as slave. Has been installed a few years.
>
> As I wanted to install WIN XP on HDD 1 and was afraid of it affecting 
> eCS on HDD 2 or my backups on HDD 3, I decided the best thing to do 
> would be to disable HDD's 2 & 3.
> I went into BIOS and changed the HDD detection from AUTO to NONE for 
> HDD 3. Rebooted and noted that boot screens showed HDD 3 not detected.
> Then changed HDD detection  from AUTO to NONE for HDD 2. Rebooted and 
> noted that boot screens showed only HDD 1 detected. Booted to WIN 95 
> and opened Partition Magic 5 and noted that it could only see HDD 1. 
> As additional check opened WIN Explorer and to my surprise noted that 
> WIN could see partitions on HDD 2 & 3 ?????????
> This astounded me and I wondered whether WIN could manipulate the 
> BIOS. I thought I would see what would happen if I changed HDD 
> detection in BIOS from AUTO to NONE for  HDD 1 also. As expected no 
> HDD's were detected and I couldn't boot. Then changed all HDD 
> detection settings back to AUTO and rebooted.
>
> That's when things went wrong and no HDD's were detected. Nothing I 
> did could get the BIOS to detect any HDD. Called in the local computer 
> repairer. He checked the BIOS and tried resetting BIOS but to no 
> avail. Said system was too old and that I would be advised to buy a 
> new computer. When you're retired you have to watch expenses, so I 
> wasn't keen on this.
>
> Left things  alone for a day then tried booting again. This time all 
> HDD's were detected, and I backed up extensively, physically 
> disconnected HDD's 2 & 3  ; installed WIN XP to remaining HDD 1 and 
> was able to boot to it. Closed WIN XP and used eCS CD to go to LVM to 
> set Boot Mgr. active. Rebooted and was able to open a copy of eCS  as 
> well as WIN XP on HDD 1.
>
> Reconnected HDD's 2 & 3 . Rebooted but no HDD's  detected again. 
> Physically disconnected HDD 3 and rebooted. This time HDD's 1 & 2 
> detected and I was able to boot to my eCS on HDD 2 as well as WIN XP 
> on HDD 1. Closed and reconnected HDD 3. Rebooted and all HDD's 
> detected and continuing to do so.
> It's got me mystified.
>
> Regards
>
> Alan

Hi Alan,
[BTW your goddam clock is waaaay out in the future again**! :-( ]

Your main problem when you were *hiding* the drives was that you should 
have been disabling the second IDE controller -- not making it "none" 
for specific HDDs, as OS/2 [forever] & hence eCS [and Linux, also 
Windoze since WIN-NT] interrogate the actual ports, independent of the 
BIOS, to determine whether there is a disk attached as master or slave 
to all non-BIOS-disabled controllers.

Having the CD on the secondary controller means that both Primary and 
secondary IDE controllers *have* to be enabled in order to have it 
visible to *any* OS, and thus all HDDs are visible to modern OSes!

Consequently you would also need to attach the CD as the *primary* 
slave, in order to only have HDD1 and the CD visible for the WXP 
installation.

I have all my primary/secondary master HDDs in removable drawers [two on 
each system], making it easy to reverse/remove primary and secondary 
masters and I put my CD-ROM/CD-RW-R permanently on the primary slave 
position. I get absolutely no speed reduction on the master on that 
channel [ATA100].

Means I never have to open the case to swap master drives around, and 
consequently the old days of knuckle-scraping are loooong gone. I'm not 
using Cable Select, just regular master/slave jumpering.

Another point is that in addition to OS/2-MCP1 & later, hence also any 
eCS, along with WinNT+ [4/2000/XP/2003], the LVM [M$ Disk Management 
Tools] can set any drive to any available driveletter, and neither has 
to have the volumes in alphabetic sequence!

On this system [which has an external SCSI CD-ROM attached] (under 
OS/2-eCS) when booted from IDE disk 1 or IDE disk 2 or from drive 3 [an 
internal SCSI] drive C: is always the final partition on the primary 
slave disk.
When booted to W2KPro from Disk 1 *it* is C: [W: in OS/2-eCS] and 
virtually all other volumes/partitions are hidden from it, for 
protection ;-) ].

HTH

** from your headers:
Delivery-date: Sat, 26 Feb 2005 21:52:28 +1100
<os2genau at os2 dot org dot au>
 ; 26 Feb 2005 21:52:27 +1100
Received: from ozemail dot com dot au ([203.61.175.96]) by smta10.mail.ozemail dot net
          with ESMTP
          id 
<20050226105217.TAUM19720.smta10.mail.ozemail dot net at ozemail dot com dot au>
          for <os2genau at os2 dot org dot au>; Sat, 26 Feb 2005 10:52:17 +0000
Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2005 21:52:05 +0000 <<-------- Here's the problem ***
From: Alan Duval <amoht at ozemail dot com dot au>

*** this is setting your origination timestamp as being in London, UK 
[UTC +0000] and is the reason your messages show up here as coming from 
11:00 into the future -- that line should read "21:52:05 +1100"

What shows up when you type "SET TZ" at the command line?

-- 
Regards,
Mike

Failed the exam for
--------------------
MCSE - Minesweeper Consultant and Solitaire Expert
--------------------
[ISP blocks *.exe, *.cmd, * dot com, *.bat, *.reg attachments]
[Please use zipped versions of above]

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

**= Email   3 ==========================**

Date:  Sun, 27 Feb 2005 09:26:07 +1100
From:  Gavin Miller <gmi12896 at bigpond dot net dot au>
Subject:  Re:  Success

Yes Kev my friend; you are  :-)

btw that config file you sent me... whoa! It just goes forever.  Nice 
and neat though.

Cheers
G

Kev wrote:

> Hi Alan
>
> Alan Duval wrote:
>
>> I mainly got it just in case I have trouble using a DVD burner which 
>> is my next project. However Kev seems to know how to set up RSJ so I 
>> have high hopes.
>
>
> Cor, mate.  All the discussion around this subject just recently was 
> the 1st time I found out that I'm the only one achieving that level of 
> success.  As for knowing how to set up RSJ - I just install it and it 
> works for me.  I do hope it's that easy for you.
>
> Kev
=========================
> Kev Downes
> kdownes at tpg dot com dot au  ph 0404 7 0808 2
> Windows isn't the answer. Windows is the question. The answer is NO!
> I use, recommend and support OS/2 Warp and eComStation.
=========================
> "Jesus Christ is the centre of everything and the object of everything;
> He who does not know him, knows nothing of the order of the world
> and nothing of himself."             Blaise Pascal
=========================
 
>
> 

>
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

**= Email   4 ==========================**

Date:  Sun, 27 Feb 2005 12:20:05 +1100
From:  Dennis Nolan <dennik at swiftdsl dot com dot au>
Subject:   New Brother Printers

Hi all

I just come across this post in one of the newsgroups, and as I'm 
receiving brochures for brother printers in magazines and as junk-mail, 
O thought it might be of interest to someone.

Quote

Managed to get this combination working the other day and thought I
should pass along what I had learned. 

This all started when my Epson Stylus C84 died a few days ago.  It
reported "empty" on its Black cartridge and I replaced it, but then
the printer stopped feeding any black ink.  After installing a
second $20 cartridge and checking for an obviously loose vacuum hose
I gave up on it.

Unfortunately, in spite of several decades' worth of "Paperless
Future" headlines I find I frequently need hard copy output.  It
seemed an opportune timeto see if I could get my sister Beth's
Christmas present working:  a Brother MFC-420CN multi-function
peripheral with USB and Ethernet ports.

  http://solutions.brother dot com/mfc420cn_us/en_us/

The MFC-420CN has roughly the footprint of an 8.5x11 scanner and
about twice its thickness.  It has a paper feed on top, a front
panel with a set of numeric/dial buttons, and a small 2-line LCD
status display.  It has a 100-sheet paper tray underneath and a set
of front slots for digital media cards (CF/SD/xD/SM/MemoryStick).

The MCF-420CN will perform most of its functions on its own.  Using
its front panel controls you can FAX to it or from it, use it as a
B&W or color copier, and print JPEG images from -- or scan into
PDF/JPEG files on -- a digital media card.  In fact (although I
haven't tested it) it appears that any computer and OS which can
read and write (e.g.)  CF cards can make full (if slighly
inconvenient) use of this device.  I didn't need all that -- I just
wanted to use it as one of those "print when _I_ say Print"
printers.

The MFC-420CN does not come with OS/2 drivers (disappointing, but
not all that unusual these days).  I spent a few hours
unsuccessfully searching the 'web for hints on possible alternate
drivers before I connected the MFC's Ethernet port to my office
network, set up its IP address as 192.168.0.99, and installed the
MSWin32 drivers and software on my Win2k machine to make sure it
printed.  It did.

I have a SuSE Linux machine ('manticore') on the same network which
lets me create PDF files through a network (Samba) printer.  This
meant I could use the MFC-420CN by printing-to-PDF, copying the PDF
file onto the Win2k machine, and printing the contents from the
Win32 Acrobat reader.  Usable in a pinch (and _much_ better than
shuffling CF cards), but still inconvenient.

From OS/2 I could PING the printer, but it didn't appear in a NET
VIEW, and although I could set up a SHARE for the Win2k machine's
"printer" I still didn't have an OS/2 driver to create the
printstream it would require.  I _did_ have a number of PostScript
drivers already installed, though.

Linux to the rescue (SuSE Linux 9.1 and Samba 3.0.8-1.1.1-SuSE, to
be exact).  Brother may not be developing OS/2 drivers but it _did_
recently release Linux drivers for a number of its printers,
including the MFC-420CN.

  http://solutions.brother dot com/linux/en_us/index.html

Brother offers an LPR driver and a CUPS "wrapper" file:

  MFC420CNlpr-1.0.0-1.i386.rpm
  cupswrapperMFC420CN-1.0.0-1.i386.rpm

as well as SANE 1.0.7+ scanner support:

  brscan-0.0.12-0.i386.rpm
  brother-sane-src-1.0.0-r011.tar.gz

After installing the print-related RPMs I defined the printer using
SuSE's YaST2 configuration utility under Hardware->Printer as:

    Name: mfc420cn  Descr: MFC420CN  [*] Do Local Filtering
    Mfgr: Brother   Model: MFC-420CN
        (which selected the CUPS PPD file)
    Connection: Direct TCP Port Printer
    Host name: brn_60fb75   Port: 9100

    (Note: the "host name" and other settings can be obtained from 
     the MFC-420CN's front panel as the LAN Configuration Report by
     pressing [Menu/Set], [6], [6], and [BlackStart] )

The host name brn_60fb75 had to be entered manually -- YaST2's
[Lookup] button failed to find it.

At this point, the [Test remote socket access] button reported
success and the test page printed properly.  Further, after
restarting manticore's Samba daemons (smbd, nmbd) I could see a
corresponding printer on my OS/2 desktop under "Samba Server" in my
Connections->Network->File_and_Print_Client_Resource_Browser folder.
From the icon's Properties notebook I chose the PSCRIPT.Tektronix
Phaser 550 1200 icon and set up appropriate Job Property defaults.

Close, but no see-gar.  I could print to the MFC420 "printer"
(LS:\\MANTICORE\MFC420CN), the job was visibly queued under OS/2,
that job was requeued by the Linux CUPS printing system as shown by

    http://localhost:631/

and the MFC-420CN reported "Receiving Data" on its LCD panel.  All
good evidence of activity, but but nothing ever printed.  Jobs
created on the Linux machine printed just fine, and their CUPS spool
files _looked_ similar to what was spooled for OS/2 jobs.

Here's the process:

 1) OS/2 application "prints" to the PSCRIPT driver, generating 
    a PostScript stream to Samba on the Linux box.
 2) The PostScript stream is queued by CUPS, which then (courtesy of 
    the Brother Linux driver) translates it to MFC-420CN-specific 
    raster commands.
 3) This raster stream is sent to 192.168.0.99:9100.

What was wrong?  I'll compress three hours of fuzzy-headed thinking
for you:  by default, Samba was supplying CUPS with a 'raw' option
for the incoming stream, so CUPS was dumping un-rasterized
PostScript out to the MFC-420 and it was getting a bit confused.
After using SWAT

    http://localhost:901/

to clear out the "cups options" field in Samba's mfc420 printer
entry and once again cycling power on the MFC-420CN everything
worked just fine.

It's wonderful! DeScribe prints just fine, and even crusty old 
WindowsDraw should be happy once I define an appropriate WinOS2 
remote printer.

Is this a general solution?  I don't know, but it's at least an
option in some situations.  If you have a printer but it doesn't
have an OS/2 driver -- but the manufacturer offers a Linux driver
for it or there's one at www.linuxprinting dot org -- build yourself a
Linux-based print server.  Pick up one of those Dell run-forever
Optiplex PII-300 machines which are selling for $25-50 these days,
throw on SuSE, RedHat, or Debian Linux, and you have a print server
with Ethernet, USB, and onboard video.

Scanning?  Works fine onto a 16 Mb CF card and stores the result in
a folder on the card named Brother.  FAXing?  ...  maybe tomorrow.
<grin>

Stuff I haven't looked into:

 1) The MFC-420CN's Network Configuration report lists <Protocols>
    (including FTP!)  and <Services>.  One of the Services is
    POSTSCRIPT_P1, which _seems_ to imply that the printer might 
    accept PostScript directed at it in some fashion. I'm just not 
    sure how to test it.

 2) Brother offers a Java-based 'web administration tool for Win32. 
    It's not _entirely_ clear why this wouldn't run under Apache 
    and Linux or OS/2, but it's a 25Mb download.  If the protocol 
    could be extracted an OS/2 or Linux tool could be created.

Hope this helps...

Frank McKenney, McKenney Associates
Richmond, Virginia / (804) 320-4887

Regards
Dennis.

Munged E-mail: frank uscore mckenney ayut minds pring dawt cahm (y'all)

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

**= Email   5 ==========================**

Date:  Sun, 27 Feb 2005 13:28:41 +0000
From:  Alan Duval <amoht at ozemail dot com dot au>
Subject:  Re:  BIOS & HDD's

Mike O'Connor wrote:

>
> *** this is setting your origination timestamp as being in London, UK 
> [UTC +0000] and is the reason your messages show up here as coming 
> from 11:00 into the future -- that line should read "21:52:05 +1100"
>
> What shows up when you type "SET TZ" at the command line?
>
This:

[G:\]SET TZ
TZ=AEST-10AEDT,10,-1,0,7200,3,-1,0,7200,3600

[G:\]

How do I fix this?

Thanks for the explanation of HDD problems.

Alan

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

**= Email   6 ==========================**

Date:  Sun, 27 Feb 2005 13:42:57 +1100
From:  Ed Durrant <edurrant at bigpond dot net dot au>
Subject:  Re:  New Brother Printers

Dennis Nolan wrote:
> Hi all
> 
> I just come across this post in one of the newsgroups, and as I'm 
> receiving brochures for brother printers in magazines and as junk-mail, 
> O thought it might be of interest to someone.
> 
> Quote
> 
> Managed to get this combination working the other day and thought I
> should pass along what I had learned.
> This all started when my Epson Stylus C84 died a few days ago.  It
> reported "empty" on its Black cartridge and I replaced it, but then
> the printer stopped feeding any black ink.  After installing a
> second $20 cartridge and checking for an obviously loose vacuum hose
> I gave up on it.
> 
> Unfortunately, in spite of several decades' worth of "Paperless
> Future" headlines I find I frequently need hard copy output.  It
> seemed an opportune timeto see if I could get my sister Beth's
> Christmas present working:  a Brother MFC-420CN multi-function
> peripheral with USB and Ethernet ports.
> 
>  http://solutions.brother dot com/mfc420cn_us/en_us/
> 
> The MFC-420CN has roughly the footprint of an 8.5x11 scanner and
> about twice its thickness.  It has a paper feed on top, a front
> panel with a set of numeric/dial buttons, and a small 2-line LCD
> status display.  It has a 100-sheet paper tray underneath and a set
> of front slots for digital media cards (CF/SD/xD/SM/MemoryStick).
> 
> The MCF-420CN will perform most of its functions on its own.  Using
> its front panel controls you can FAX to it or from it, use it as a
> B&W or color copier, and print JPEG images from -- or scan into
> PDF/JPEG files on -- a digital media card.  In fact (although I
> haven't tested it) it appears that any computer and OS which can
> read and write (e.g.)  CF cards can make full (if slighly
> inconvenient) use of this device.  I didn't need all that -- I just
> wanted to use it as one of those "print when _I_ say Print"
> printers.
> 
> The MFC-420CN does not come with OS/2 drivers (disappointing, but
> not all that unusual these days).  I spent a few hours
> unsuccessfully searching the 'web for hints on possible alternate
> drivers before I connected the MFC's Ethernet port to my office
> network, set up its IP address as 192.168.0.99, and installed the
> MSWin32 drivers and software on my Win2k machine to make sure it
> printed.  It did.
> 
> I have a SuSE Linux machine ('manticore') on the same network which
> lets me create PDF files through a network (Samba) printer.  This
> meant I could use the MFC-420CN by printing-to-PDF, copying the PDF
> file onto the Win2k machine, and printing the contents from the
> Win32 Acrobat reader.  Usable in a pinch (and _much_ better than
> shuffling CF cards), but still inconvenient.
> 
>> From OS/2 I could PING the printer, but it didn't appear in a NET
> 
> VIEW, and although I could set up a SHARE for the Win2k machine's
> "printer" I still didn't have an OS/2 driver to create the
> printstream it would require.  I _did_ have a number of PostScript
> drivers already installed, though.
> 
> Linux to the rescue (SuSE Linux 9.1 and Samba 3.0.8-1.1.1-SuSE, to
> be exact).  Brother may not be developing OS/2 drivers but it _did_
> recently release Linux drivers for a number of its printers,
> including the MFC-420CN.
> 
>  http://solutions.brother dot com/linux/en_us/index.html
> 
> Brother offers an LPR driver and a CUPS "wrapper" file:
> 
>  MFC420CNlpr-1.0.0-1.i386.rpm
>  cupswrapperMFC420CN-1.0.0-1.i386.rpm
> 
> as well as SANE 1.0.7+ scanner support:
> 
>  brscan-0.0.12-0.i386.rpm
>  brother-sane-src-1.0.0-r011.tar.gz
> 
> After installing the print-related RPMs I defined the printer using
> SuSE's YaST2 configuration utility under Hardware->Printer as:
> 
>    Name: mfc420cn  Descr: MFC420CN  [*] Do Local Filtering
>    Mfgr: Brother   Model: MFC-420CN
>        (which selected the CUPS PPD file)
>    Connection: Direct TCP Port Printer
>    Host name: brn_60fb75   Port: 9100
> 
>    (Note: the "host name" and other settings can be obtained from     
> the MFC-420CN's front panel as the LAN Configuration Report by
>     pressing [Menu/Set], [6], [6], and [BlackStart] )
> 
> The host name brn_60fb75 had to be entered manually -- YaST2's
> [Lookup] button failed to find it.
> 
> At this point, the [Test remote socket access] button reported
> success and the test page printed properly.  Further, after
> restarting manticore's Samba daemons (smbd, nmbd) I could see a
> corresponding printer on my OS/2 desktop under "Samba Server" in my
> Connections->Network->File_and_Print_Client_Resource_Browser folder.
> 
>> From the icon's Properties notebook I chose the PSCRIPT.Tektronix
> 
> Phaser 550 1200 icon and set up appropriate Job Property defaults.
> 
> Close, but no see-gar.  I could print to the MFC420 "printer"
> (LS:\\MANTICORE\MFC420CN), the job was visibly queued under OS/2,
> that job was requeued by the Linux CUPS printing system as shown by
> 
>    http://localhost:631/
> 
> and the MFC-420CN reported "Receiving Data" on its LCD panel.  All
> good evidence of activity, but but nothing ever printed.  Jobs
> created on the Linux machine printed just fine, and their CUPS spool
> files _looked_ similar to what was spooled for OS/2 jobs.
> 
> Here's the process:
> 
> 1) OS/2 application "prints" to the PSCRIPT driver, generating    a 
> PostScript stream to Samba on the Linux box.
> 2) The PostScript stream is queued by CUPS, which then (courtesy of    
> the Brother Linux driver) translates it to MFC-420CN-specific    raster 
> commands.
> 3) This raster stream is sent to 192.168.0.99:9100.
> 
> What was wrong?  I'll compress three hours of fuzzy-headed thinking
> for you:  by default, Samba was supplying CUPS with a 'raw' option
> for the incoming stream, so CUPS was dumping un-rasterized
> PostScript out to the MFC-420 and it was getting a bit confused.
> After using SWAT
> 
>    http://localhost:901/
> 
> to clear out the "cups options" field in Samba's mfc420 printer
> entry and once again cycling power on the MFC-420CN everything
> worked just fine.
> 
> It's wonderful! DeScribe prints just fine, and even crusty old 
> WindowsDraw should be happy once I define an appropriate WinOS2 remote 
> printer.
> 
> Is this a general solution?  I don't know, but it's at least an
> option in some situations.  If you have a printer but it doesn't
> have an OS/2 driver -- but the manufacturer offers a Linux driver
> for it or there's one at www.linuxprinting dot org -- build yourself a
> Linux-based print server.  Pick up one of those Dell run-forever
> Optiplex PII-300 machines which are selling for $25-50 these days,
> throw on SuSE, RedHat, or Debian Linux, and you have a print server
> with Ethernet, USB, and onboard video.
> 
> Scanning?  Works fine onto a 16 Mb CF card and stores the result in
> a folder on the card named Brother.  FAXing?  ...  maybe tomorrow.
> <grin>
> 
> Stuff I haven't looked into:
> 
> 1) The MFC-420CN's Network Configuration report lists <Protocols>
>    (including FTP!)  and <Services>.  One of the Services is
>    POSTSCRIPT_P1, which _seems_ to imply that the printer might    
> accept PostScript directed at it in some fashion. I'm just not    sure 
> how to test it.
> 
> 2) Brother offers a Java-based 'web administration tool for Win32.    
> It's not _entirely_ clear why this wouldn't run under Apache    and 
> Linux or OS/2, but it's a 25Mb download.  If the protocol    could be 
> extracted an OS/2 or Linux tool could be created.
> 
> Hope this helps...
> 
> 
> Frank McKenney, McKenney Associates
> Richmond, Virginia / (804) 320-4887
> 
> Regards
> Dennis.
> 
  Hi Dennis,

    There's been a thread running for some time on the ECS-Technical 
newslist related to the Brother MFC620CN. This the next model up from 
the 420 with an auto sheet feeder and answering machine built in, but 
based on a similar concept to the model you have. The manual for the 
620CN actually refers to printing to the printer from OS/2 !!  The IBM 
PCL driver lists several Brother MFC printer models, but, in the version 
that I have - these new models are not listed. I would not be surprised 
to find that one of the existing drivers will work with the printer. 
Brother printers have always emulated HP PCL (Laserjet) printers as one 
of their options. There is an OS/2er in the UK trying to sort this out.

   Other features of the MFC620CN include the ability to scan a document 
to an camera memory card plugged into the device or to internal memory 
from where it can be access via FTP from your OS/2 system (hence no need 
for SANE/2 support). The fact that the printer is ethernet as well as 
USB attachable and runs and LPD server makes it a great cross-platform 
network based printer.

   As for administration, most iteams "should" be configurable from the 
front panel. The write up about the web based tool (Java app) refers to 
running it on a web server, I don't understand why this should not be 
accessible from any platform running JAVA and able to talk to the 
printers internal web server - maybe SNMP is required ? It may also be 
possible to run the Win32 management tool under ODIN, it certainly 
should work from within SVista/2 or VPC/2.

   All in all, both the MFC420CN (AUS$250 at computer market) and 
MFC620CN (AUS$350 at computer market) from Brother are worth a look, 
especially if it's time to replace your fax machine, printer and scanner.

Cheers/2

Ed.
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**= Email   7 ==========================**

Date:  Sun, 27 Feb 2005 12:48:22 +1000
From:  Mike O'Connor <mikeoc at dodo dot com dot au>
Subject:  Re:  BIOS & HDD's

Alan Duval wrote:

> Mike O'Connor wrote:
>
>> *** this is setting your origination timestamp as being in London, UK 
>> [UTC +0000] and is the reason your messages show up here as coming 
>> from 11:00 into the future -- that line should read "21:52:05 +1100"
>>
>> What shows up when you type "SET TZ" at the command line?
>
> This:
>
> [G:\]SET TZ
> TZ=AEST-10AEDT,10,-1,0,7200,3,-1,0,7200,3600
>
> [G:\]
>
> How do I fix this?
>
> Thanks for the explanation of HDD problems.

You're welcome - *lots* of users don't seem to realise about direct port 
access to the HDDs by OSes!

> Alan

Hi Alan,

As a Quick'n'Dirty fix -- just change your config.sys to read SET 
TZ=AEDT-11, and reboot
As a quick check, before rebooting you could start Mozilla from a 
cmd-file that has "SET TZ=AEDT-11" as the first statement, so that it 
uses that as the TZ setting - which will work until the end of DST, at 
which time you can modify it to read "SET TZ=AEST-10".

-- 
Regards,
Mike

Failed the exam for
--------------------
MCSE - Minesweeper Consultant and Solitaire Expert
--------------------
[ISP blocks *.exe, *.cmd, * dot com, *.bat, *.reg attachments]
[Please use zipped versions of above]

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**= Email   8 ==========================**

Date:  Sun, 27 Feb 2005 14:07:44 +1100
From:  Ed Durrant <edurrant at bigpond dot net dot au>
Subject:  Re:  New Brother Printers

Here's the reference for your MFC410CN printer, networking manual.

http://global.solutions.brother dot com/mfc410cn_eu_as/en_us/download/nu_guide.html

Go there and press on the download button for the English - asia pacific 
manual (PDF file) - and look at section 4, first page and you will see 
OS/2 Warp referenced as being supported.

Cheers/2

Ed.
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**= Email   9 ==========================**

Date:  Sun, 27 Feb 2005 10:51:21 +0100
From:  Kris Steenhaut <kris.steenhaut at hccnet.nl>
Subject:  Re:  New Brother Printers

Ed Durrant schreef:

> will see OS/2 Warp referenced as being supported.

But other than that, you are completely at your own (if you are os2/ecs 
user).

-- 
Groeten uit Gent,

   Kris

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