Subject: PMP> Cc: [email-masked]

From: [email-masked] (peter smartt)
Date: Mon, 27 Oct 1997 11:27:08 +1000

Harry,

Re: Your Error Status Reporting Mechanism proposal.

I strongly agree that anything that lets us implement error status conditions
in a logical fashion without being tied to the HR MIB, but retaining backward
compatibility is a good thing. It has always been difficult under the previous
MIB to implement error status sensibly (i.e. it is a problem and it needs
fixing).

I am also glad that someone has finally acknowledge that not all printers
implement "Offline", and that it has always been ill-defined (our printers
can still "Go Offline" but I don't know for how much longer).

We have not written any management software at Pacific Semiconductor, but we
use a plug-in Network Interface Card (NIC) supplied by a third party in the UK.
The NIC implements the HR MIB and some other MIB's, and we have no control over
that implementation. They pass any Printer MIB requests onto us and we answer
them. The only control we have over the NIC is in the status byte we pass,
which it uses to update its HR MIB information.

In the department of dumb questions (probably because I have not had time to
fully absorb your proposal, here is an example dumb question:-

Without going into full details of your proposal again, does it have any
implications for our situation?  In other words, does anyone who implements
your proposal (within the printer), need to change anything in the BEHAVIOUR
of HR MIB objects (without changing the HR MIB itself) (such as when we should
set and clear certain HR error bits).

I suspect that the answer is No, but if there are any implications, we may
need to discuss these with our NIC supplier before implementing your proposal.

Lloyd,

> There has been some discussion that the current Error Status
> Reporting mechanism in the Printer MIB is not sufficient.
> There have been solutions already proposed to the problem
> but I would like for this thread to discuss is the current
> mechanism broken? Harry, Jay and Tom have already stated
> Yes - it is broken. I would like to hear from other people
> as well.
> Regards,
> Lloyd

Yes - Broken - IMHO. It has always been difficult to implement this part
of the Printer MIB, in line with the HR MIB.

Jay,

> And, as stated previously, you really must put a deadline on receipt
> of comments on this thread if you're ever going to draw a line on
> consensus in a timely manner.
> 
> Please follow-up with a deadline for comments, Lloyd.  Thanks.
> 
> 	...jay

Regarding deadlines, thats fine as long as they take into account people
on the other side of the world, who often can't make it to meetings and
have different weekends or holidays, but still might need to make a
contribution, and whose email might take several hours. (i.e. 2-3 days
often is just not long enough.)

Cheers

Peter Smartt.

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Peter Smartt                       |    Email:  [email-masked]
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