From: tom@nds.com (Tom Williamson)
Subject: Sloooow Printing with OS/2
Reply-To: tom@nds.COM (Tom Williamson)
Organization: Northwest Digital Systems
Date: Tue, 01 Sep 92 18:19:53 GMT

In the recent past I have posted to this newsgroup a couple of articles asking 
for assistance in making os/2 print something.  I would like to say "Thanks" 
to everyone for their suggestions.

Here is the current status:  I have os/2 running on a 486-33 (DX) system with 
8 MB RAM and two 100+ Meg IDE hard drives.  The printer is a HP LaserJet IIP.  

Initially, I was complaining that the system would send information to the 
printer and nothing was coming out.  It appears as though I was a bit 
impatient.  I was not waiting long enough.  From an os/2 command line I would 
issue a PRINT AUTOEXEC.BAT command.  About 8 minutes later my 8 line 
autoexec.bat file would print.  To print the config.sys file would take about 
one half hour.

Yesterday, I downloaded the new driver "LaserJet.zoo" from ftp-os2 and 
went home with high expectations that this new driver would speed things up.  
It did!  Now the autoexec.bat file prints in less than a minute. (Acceptable) 
The config.sys file, less than 10 minutes.  (Questionable)

Now the real test.  I opened the on-line command reference and issued the 
command to print the Table of Contents.  The only other processes running were 
pulse, and clock.  The first page took about 32 minutes to print.  I left the 
system on all night and sure enough all four pages printed.  It is obvious 
that downloaded fonts were used.  IMHO it looks like crap!  Very ragged edges!
I cannot seem to find a way to make it use the printer fonts.

One observation that I noted is that the Pulse window showed everything at 
pretty much an idle while I was waiting for output.  What is it doing during 
that time?  If nothing else is demanding time from the processor, why doesn't 
os/2 give the spooler all the processing power available?

In case it is not obvious, I am mainly a user, not a programmer.

I have several questions that I would like to ask all you folks:

Is there any way to speed things up through the settings?
Am I just expecting too much?
Does IBM expect the printer manufacturers to supply the drivers for os/2 like 
they expect the video board manufacturers to supply the video drivers?

What about the other users out there that have similar systems, does it take 
an eternity to spool something off to the printer on your system?

This setup is on my home system.  There is no way I could install os/2 in a 
business environment and expect to use it the way it currently operates.

Fortunately, I have installed the boot manager so I still have access to DOS 
for when I need to get some real work done.  Somehow I don't think that IBM 
had that in the plan for os/2 though.  Maybe it should be called OS/TOY!   

Anyway, IBM has put out an os that has great potential.  I will NOT remove it 
from my system because I am confident that this problem will be resolved  -- 
someday.  Until that time though, I am stuck printing under DOS.

It seems to me that with a 32 bit os, a simple task such a printing should 
be blinding fast. 

Thanks for letting me ramble on and especially for any assistance that comes 
from this.

tom williamson
tom@nds.com