hpvptyd is a daemon that allows an ethernet printer to be run by software for a serial printer. It has been used for over a year to drive the Hewlett-Packard LaserJet 4Si MX printers in the UCB Mathematics department. We use it to drive the printers in PostScript mode, using the TranScript software provided by Adobe, running under SunOS 4.1.3. There have been no major problems with this configuration. This program may work under other configurations, but I have no knowledge of anybody trying.
hpvptyd is very similar to the program hpnptyd supplied by Hewlett-Packard; the major difference (and the major reason for writing it in the first place) is that it implements a different timeout policy, which we have found to work better at our site. In addition, some of the more severe errors are logged via syslog.
The current version of hpvptyd is Version 1.0; it is available for download.
This page last updated 16 February 2005