Subject: PWG> hrMIB status

From: "Harry Lewis <[email-masked]>" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 12 Dec 96 16:52:59 MST

I don't know what will ever be the catalyst for progressing the HR MIB or
how lack of HR MIB progression will ultimately effect the Printer MIB. I
have an observation and suggestion, however, related to the Printer MIB and
the HR MIB.

PWG has groaned repeatedly that we are restricted from fully defining printer
status due to previously defined minimal set in HR MIB. Still true. But,
in reading the HR MIB prtDetectedErrorState, I find the definition is
Octet String and the description defines how multiple bytes should be ordered.
This implies more bits can be defined. We might be able to improve on our
status indication by making use of this observation. It might also give
the HR MIB a reason to re-activate (admit, I'm really naive about this).

Here are my initial recommendations for new bit definitions:

  Tray Open
  Output Full
  Toner Cartridge Missing (or other form of supply like ribbon, ink etc.)

Currently, our implementation maps Tray Open to (bit) Low Paper
                                 Output Full          Service Requested
                     Toner Cartridge Missing          No Toner

I have to imagine that other implementation work in a similar fashion and I'll
bet interoperability testing would demonstrate differences in how we all do
it!

Harry Lewis - IBM Printing Systems

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From: JK Martin <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 14 Dec 1996 20:45:37 -0500

Harry,

I wholeheartedly support your suggestions and proposals for advancing
the HR MIB.  As management application developers, however, we no
longer utilize the HR status values to detect problem states, since
the contents of the Alert Table must be the sole truth of any and all
problems currently present in the printer.  We do use the HR values,
though, to detect if the printer is currently printing...although
uniform implementation of this aspect has not yet been widely tested.

At the recent PWG IETF BOF, the issue of HR MIB advancement arose,
and Dierdre made a few comments about the situation, but I really
couldn't read between the lines of her statements.  Perhaps Chris
Wellens can better comment on this situation.

	...jay

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