HP 5100tn Printer Job Language - Technical Reference Manual - Page 201
network-attached printer. The network spoolers can inject
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Host computers #2 and #3 are connected to the printer via an external printer sharing box that buffers data. If the printer sharing box was not designed to support bi-directional communication with the printer, then applications on host computers #2 and #3 will not be able to receive printer status readback information. However, since the printer sharing box is connected to the printer via the Bi-Tronics I/O interface, which does support bi-directional communication, it is possible for printer sharing boxes to be designed to support printer status readback. In fact, the printer sharing box itself may be able to inject a "print job" to query the printer for specific information. External printer sharing boxes can be designed to support sending data from the printer to the host computer. However, the printer sharing box has to determine which host computer should receive the printer's response. The simplest solution for printer sharing boxes is to forward all data received from the printer to all attached host computers, and let the applications on each host computer ignore any impertinent data, as described in the "Handling Unexpected Printer Responses" section in this chapter. The printer in this example is also attached directly to a network via a network interface card installed into the printer's MIO interface. Network servers #4 and #5 spool print jobs from network clients #6 and #7. In this example, the network clients can not interact directly with the network-attached printer. The network spoolers can inject a "print job" to query the printer and can expect to get responses back. However, for this example, the network operating system does not provide a mechanism which allows applications running on a network client to query the printer and get a response. The printer's I/O card, the printer sharing box, and the spoolers running on the network servers can query the printer and expect to receive a response since those components are connected directly to the printer (i.e. no other printing system component except for the Programming Tips 10-21