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From: korn@apple.UUCP (Peter "Arrgh" Korn)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Everybody must run Multifinder?
Message-ID: <6910@apple.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 6-Dec-87 01:20:07 EST
Article-I.D.: apple.6910
Posted: Sun Dec  6 01:20:07 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 10-Dec-87 23:44:43 EST
References: <378@PT.CS.CMU.EDU> <67100019@cdp> <4629@well.UUCP>
Reply-To: korn@apple.UUCP (Peter "Arrgh" Korn)
Organization: Apple Computer Inc., Cupertino, USA
Lines: 57
Disclaimer:  I wasn't hired to give Apple's opinions


In article <4629@well.UUCP> espen@well.UUCP (Peter Espen) writes:
>
>	At my place of work we have four people on AppleTalk all printing
>to one LaserWriter. If we have all upgraded to the new Apple system software,
>can we each print to the LaserWriter in the background without conflicting
>with each other or causing other problems when using backgrounder under MF?

First off, if one of the four upgrade to the new software, *all* of you
must upgrade to the new software.  The latest system release (System Disk 5.0)
contains a new version of the LaserWriter driver, version 5.0.  If you have
someone on your network printing with 5.0 and someone else printing with a
different version (4.0, say), you will get into LaserWars(tm).  LaserWars
are when different people are constantly reinitializing the LaserWriter with
different versions of the Laser Prep file, making for lots of wasted time,
and just general annoyance.  So on that score, everyone should be running
the same release of the System, whatever it may be.

As to background printing, it makes no difference as to who is printing
in the background, and who is printing in the foreground.  Background
printing takes a little more time, but is basically transparent to anything
else that is going on on that machine, and is highly recommended.  Unless
your machines are very tight for memory or disk space, background printing
will probably be the way everyone will want to go; though there is no reason
that someone cannot print in the foreground if others are printing in the
background.

When a machine prints in the background, in reality the background laser
driver is used, and the postscript file is spooled off to disk into a special
folder in your system folder.  Then, a program that is constantly running and
taking up some very small amount of RAM notices that there is a file in
that folder, and fires up Print Monitor, the background printing program
(if there is memory to do so; otherwise it informs you that there isn't
the RAM to run Print Monitor right now, and it will try again later). 
Print Monitor then checks and sees if the LaserWriter is busy, and if not
it prints; if so, it gets in the queue and when it's turn comes around, it
prints.  Meanhwhile the Macintosh is free to run others apps as RAM permits.

In addition to foreground/background printing, another printing option is
available:  having a macintosh do print spooling.  With background printing 
via Print Monitor the need for a special printer spooler isn't as great, 
though still quite useful.  Especially in a larger network, having a 
dedicated macintosh that spools to the printer (perhaps in addition to being 
a network file server) can speed up printing by a fair margin, even with 
background printing.  I find that I get my output appreciably faster if I 
print in the foreground to LaserShare, Apple's network print spooling 
program.  While I haven't used any of the others, like network SuperLaserSpool 
from SuperMac technologies, I'd expect similar speed improvements there as 
well.  If you are in the market for a network spooler, I'd look at one that 
works in conjunction with a network file server.  Typically, most places that
find that they use their printers often enough to benefit from a network
print spooler are also large enough to benefit from a network file server.
And if the two services can be combine on on machine, so much the better.


Peter
-- 
 Peter "Arrgh" Korn    korn@apple.com   !hplabs!amdahl!apple!korn    "Hi mom!"