This review covers the performance of a member of the Ricoh Aficio family of multifunctional products (MFPs). The testing verifies compatibility working with various components of the VPS® suite as well as the UNIX-based VPSX™ Output Management solution, both from Levi, Ray & Shoup, Inc. (LRS). Staff from the LRS® Enterprise Systems Engineering (ESE) group performed the testing and evaluation of this printer.
Printer Highlights
The model tested was the Ricoh Aficio 2035e. The Ricoh Aficio 2035e was at Firmware revision 2.40s. This multifunctional product prints, makes black and white copies, and scans. We added an optional IPDS and PostScript feature to test printing compatibility.
LRS Product Testing
We tested the Ricoh Aficio 2035e printer connected with a mainframe (z/OS) running VPS V1R8.0 at fix level 443. We also activated VPS/IPDS and VPS/TCPIP.
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 (e.g. PostScript or PCL) to pass transparently to the destination device or LPD.
We used a sample printer definition (DFLTLPD) to test line mode printing on the Aficio 2035e. (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= keyword was added to the printer definition with the TCP/IP address of the Ricoh Aficio 2035e. We sent both small and large print jobs to this printer destination with the resulting output printing correctly.
We used a second printer definition (PRTIPDSI) to test the Aficio 2035e's ability to handle 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 Ricoh Aficio 2035e. We sent sample print jobs to this printer destination with the resulting output printing as expected.
We used a third printer definition (DFTSOK) to test the Aficio 2035e's ability to communicate PJL and provide assured delivery. We modified the printer definition by changing the DEST= keyword and the TCPHOST= keyword to the appropriate values for the Ricoh Aficio 2035e. We added PJLOPTS=0040 and submitted several jobs. The test confirmed that we were receiving the detailed job and page information provided using PJL communication.
We next tested the Ricoh Aficio 2035e printer with a UNIX (Sun Solaris) server running VPSX V1R3.0 at fix level 6.
VPSX, running on various UNIX platforms, manages and delivers output to TCP/IP attached printers. This software enables you to deliver print ready data (PCL, Postscript, etc.) to a wide range of printers and actively manage the print devices.
We used a sample printer definition (LPDSAMP) to test line mode printing on the Aficio 2035e. (VPSX customers can load all sample printer definitions during the install as an option.) We modified the printer definition using the web interface. We created a "Ricoh" queue name and updated the TCP/IP address for the Ricoh Aficio 2035e. We sent both small and large text print jobs to this printer destination with the resulting output printing correctly.
We used a sample printer definition (PJLSAMP) to test assured delivery with the Aficio 2035e. We used the the web interface to copy and modify the queue name, and then entered in the correct TCP/IP address. In the advanced tab, we specified that VPSX provide PJL job information and page information to the log. We sent PCL, Postscript, and Text print jobs to this printer destination with the resulting output printing correctly. The log confirmed that assured delivery of each printed page was reported. We tested check pointing and confirmed it also was working correctly.
We tested the polling ability of VPSX to send automated SNMP broadcasts to the printer to prompt it for device status. We simply checked the SNMP checkbox on the printer definition screen and set the interval to prompt for status updates as required. We performed an SNMP query for an individual printer selection. This opens another window showing the hardware device status. The Aficio 2035e's status correctly displayed in the device interface and in the SNMP query window.
Testing Overview:
| Data stream |
Product |
Connection |
Print Result |
| Line Data |
VPS |
LPR |
Successful |
| Line Data |
VPS |
SOK/PJL |
Successful |
| IPDS Data |
VPS/IPDS |
SOK |
Successful |
| Line Data |
VPSX |
LPR |
Successful |
| Line Data |
VPSX |
SOK/PJL |
Successful |
| Postscript Data |
VPSX |
SOK/PJL |
Successful |
| PCL Data |
VPSX |
SOK/PJL |
Successful |
| SNMP Query |
VPSX |
UDP |
Successful |
Ricoh Aficio 2035e Features at a glance:
Features:
Multifunctional product prints, scans, and copies
35 lines per minute
Printer resident fonts and bar codes
World market and Euro character capability
Print directly from Windows applications
Optional: Scan, Fax, Email, Finishing
Connectivity:
Standard: 10/100 Ethernet, IEEE-1284 Parallel
Optional: Wireless IEEE 811B, FireWire IEEE-1394, USB 2.0,
and Bluetooth
Emulations:
Standard: PCL 5e/6 emulation Ricoh RPCS
Optional: Adobe PostScript3
Trade Marking Attribution Necessary for Printer Review
LRS and VPS are registered trademarks and VPSX is a trademark of Levi, Ray & Shoup, Inc. Ricoh and Aficio are registered trademarks of Ricoh Company, Ltd. RPCS™ is a trademark of Ricoh Company, Ltd. Adobe and PostScript are registered trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated. z/OS is a registered trademark and AFP is a trademark of International Business Machines Corporation. UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group in the United States and other countries. Solaris is a trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc. Windows is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and other countries. FireWire is a trademark of Apple Computer, Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. The Bluetooth trademarks are owned by Bluetooth SIG, Inc. PCL is a registered trademark of Hewlett-Packard Company.
