Printronix^® P5000 Series Line Matrix Printer

Printronix is the world's leading producer of line matrix printers. They have been an industry leader in line matrix printing since 1974. The P5000 series offers seven versatile models with speeds of up to 2000 lines per minute and noise levels less than many office laser printers. The P5000 series can emulate an IBM 4234 and is compatible with the full line of Printronix printing solutions.

This review covers the performance of the Printronix P5000 series printer working with various components of the VPS^® suite of Enterprise Output Management solutions from Levi, Ray & Shoup, Inc. (LRS). Systems Engineers in the LRS Enterprise Document Engineering (EDE) group performed the testing and evaluation of this printer.

Printer Highlights
The printer model tested was the Printronix P5205. We added an optional IPDS feature to test compatibility with VPS/IPDS. We used the optional PrintNet 10/100 Base T interface to establish an ethernet connection to the printer. Once the ethernet connection initialized, the printer became active, automatically accessing the proper IP configuration from the LRS network. The user can fully access printer controls and menus from the front printer panel or via a remote interface with the web-based PrintNet management control tool for easy access to a single P5000 printer.

LRS Product Testing
We tested the Printronix P5205 printer using VPS V1R8.0 at fix level 443. We also activated VPS/IPDS and VPS/TCPIP in order to test this printer.

VPS/IPDS converts AFP output to an IPDS datastream and routes the output to VTAM or TCP/IP attached IPDS printers without using PSF. This software allows you to manage AFP and non-AFP printing with the same system, support an unlimited number of IPDS printers in an address space, and add IPDS printers to the system without updating JES parameters.

VPS/TCPIP processes output addressed to any TCP/IP device and dynamically routes the output directly to a TCP/IP printer or a Line Printer Daemon (LPD). VPS/TCPIP performs any necessary EBCDIC-to-ASCII translation, while allowing special datasets (PostScript®, PCL) to pass transparently to the destination device or LPD.

We used a sample printer definition (DFLTLPD) to test line mode printing on the P5205. (VPS customers can find this sample printer definition in the SAMPLIB shipped with VPS V1R80.) The printer definition was modified by changing the DEST= keyword to an appropriate user defined destination. The keyword TCPHOST= was added to the printer definition with the TCP/IP address of the Printronix P5205. We sent both small and large print jobs to this printer destination with the resulting output correctly printing.

We then used a second printer definition (PRTIPDSI) to test the P5205's ability to handle AFP output printed through VPS/IPDS. (This sample definition is also in the SAMPLIB shipped with VPS V1R80.) We modified the printer definition by changing the DEST= keyword and the TCPHOST= keyword to the appropriate values for the Printronix P5205. We sent both small and large AFP print jobs to this printer destination, with the resulting output printing as expected. By changing the values of FORMDEF=, PAGEDEF= and CHARS= in the printer definition, we could achieve various AFP output formats.

About the Enterprise System Engineering (ESE) Group
The LRS ESE group consists of systems engineers with diverse backgrounds and expertise in mainframe, midrange, and LAN/WAN print distribution environments. These engineers assist customers in solving their enterprise output challenges. In addition to reviewing printing hardware and software, the ESE group provides:

Testing Overview:

Data stream	Product	Connection	Print Result
Line Data	VPS®	LPR	successful
AFP Data	VPS/IPDS	SOK	successful

Printronix P5000 Series Features at a glance Features: 500 to 2000 lines per minute depending on model Printer resident fonts and bar codes World market and Euro character capability Print directly from Windows applications Continuous feed, fan folded paper Size: 3" to 17" width Connectivity: Standard: Parallel, Serial Optional: Ethernet, Coax, Twinax Emulations: Serial matrix, line printer, IGP graphics, ANSI, CT and IPDS