Cyclone/Colorbus & SGI
Michele Brenner
We recently purchased an SGI system running Cyclone software to drive my
Regal Color Copiers. The MACs connect-no problem. PCs no problem when
running Appletalk. I would like to connect my PC running WIN95 to the SGI
server using TCP/IP. I can ping the server but I cannot mount the Cyclone
on the desktop which I think I must do in order to print to the various
queues.
I've heard of a product called Chameleon which is supposed to enable me
to do this. Does anyone know of this product or of similar products that
would do the job? Colorbus has no clue.
Thanks.
Adam Frix
>We recently purchased an SGI system running Cyclone software to drive my
>Regal Color Copiers.
My condolences. (Not the Cyclone, the Regal.)
>The MACs connect-no problem. PCs no problem when
>running Appletalk. I would like to connect my PC running WIN95 to the SGI
>server using TCP/IP. I can ping the server but I cannot mount the Cyclone
>on the desktop which I think I must do in order to print to the various
>queues.
Why do you have to mount the Cyclone on the desktop?
The Cyclone is a UNIX print server. You print to it over TCP/IP by using
lpr. What you're looking for is a package for Win95 which will print to a
UNIX print server using lpr, but does so in such a way that you're still
using the usual Win95 printer installation. Sounds straightforward to me;
in fact, that would also work with the Fierys....hmmmmm......
Colorbus has no clue? Are you kidding? Are you sure you asked them the
right question? Maybe you talked with the wrong person. My experience
is, they're on the ball.
Anyway, you say you don't have any problems printing from your PCs when
they're equipped with AppleTalk, right?. Why not equip your Win95 boxes
the same way? Use Cooperative Printing Solutions' new COPSTalk for Win95;
it (allegedly) integrates into the Windows Network Neighborhood quite
nicely; it sounds like a much nicer install than under Win3.1.
Aloha,
--Adam--
Jim Prall
In article <4r9mvk$m...@panix.com> blk...@panix.com (Michele Brenner)
writes:
We recently purchased an SGI system running Cyclone software to drive my
Regal Color Copiers. The MACs connect-no problem. PCs no problem when
running Appletalk. I would like to connect my PC running WIN95 to the SGI
server using TCP/IP. I can ping the server but I cannot mount the Cyclone
on the desktop which I think I must do in order to print to the various
queues.
I've heard of a product called Chameleon which is supposed to enable me
to do this. Does anyone know of this product or of similar products that
would do the job? Colorbus has no clue.
To "mount" a disk from a unix server such as your SGI, you need more
than TCP/IP. The service you need is called NFS. It is possible or
likely that the SGI is already able to act as an NFS server, since
this is pretty universal in the unix world. It may not already
be configured to "NFS-export" the desired files system. Only an
SGI unix user is likely to understand this step.
Next, you need an NFS client for your PC. There are several; all are
commercial and cost $200 to $500 per PC client. I can't suggest one
over another, but if you do a search for the topic "NFS client"
plus "Windows 95" you should find lots of contenders. Or ask your
dealer.
I'm sure there are also Unix add-ons that make unix servers provide
Windows-compatible file services, but I'm not up on that area.
NFS is a good, fast protocol as long as you don't try to do multiple
accesses at once (shared database files, multi-user groupware stuff).
For that, NFS has performance limitations due to slow file locking
on some systems.
--
-- Jim Prall | Gandalf Graphics - Indigo E-Print on-demand 4/4C
-- Toronto, Canada | plus 4-up imposed film & proofing
-- "If you never doubt when to type 'quit' and when to type 'exit' ...
-- you MAY be a unix junkie."