• nothikari (unregistered) in reply to hikari
    fjf:
    Robyrt:
    The real problem is using the check printer as a backup printer for other random print jobs in the first place. What, did they think it would just switch over to A4 paper?
    Which country still uses checks these days and has A4 paper?

    Please turn on your sarcasm detector, You cheque-using countries seem to be completely unable to grasp that the cheque system is inherently inflexible, error-prone and expensive to maintain. We have overcome this decades ago by simply requesting people to directly transfer money between bank accounts. This now works (for some EU-countries even without any direct transaction costs) on a european scale.

    I am always amused by the inflexibility of thinking and not-knowing of how things work in other countries of US-centric minds.

  • Romojo (unregistered)

    Must be change management - I support two mainframes here in <company name> and the Windows people are usually the ones who can't do what I do, or do it as fast as I can. They have a lot more cooks stirring that broth, as well....

  • Corporate_Monkey (unregistered)

    Why not just put in the change request ticket with the mainframe guys and wait the 10-20 days?

  • Brian (unregistered) in reply to QJo

    The five minutes is likely so the problem print job times out and goes away until the next login.

  • Darth Age (unregistered)

    Wait what!?!

    A mainframe doing TCP/IP networking back in 1984?

    That's pretty rare.

    And probably indicates a homegrown TCP/IP-stack; updated as regularly as they have updated the IP list of their printers.

    No wonder they don't use a VPN for connecting to the mainframe.

    Their network management really is arcane.

  • Mac (unregistered) in reply to QJo

    You never worked with "mainframe" folks... have you...

  • Andrew (unregistered) in reply to QJo

    The printer has nothing to do with it, that's the time for the mainframe to notice the user login, try to send the print job, notice that it's not going to work, and give up.

  • anon (unregistered) in reply to QJo

    I believe that waiting time is for the mainframe to determine that the printer is not responding, stop.

    The job isn't in the mainframe queue; rebooting the mainframe wouldn't have solved it--it was that the mainframe was sending this job fresh and new every time users logged in; why it wasn't going to the original printer if this was an alternative--they seemed to have decided the original printer and its IP is not an issue if no one complained about it, seeing this alternate was only supposed to be used in case the first one failed...

    Anyway the five minutes is to just let the mainframe printer pipes drain bits onto the floor. After that it is out of 1984 print jobs, and the printer can be turned on again and receive relevant data. That's my understanding of it...

  • -is (unregistered) in reply to QJo
    QJo:
    "... unplug the printer, wait five minutes, and then plug it back in."

    There's the real WFT. Five minutes? For a printer of that vintage? Why on earth so long? That's nearly half as long as it takes to boot up a contemporary laptop with Windows 7 installed! Even my TV cable box only needs at most half a minute.

    The five minutes are not booting time or login time for anything - it is to be sure the mainframe has given up on sending the print job for this round.

  • eric bloedow (unregistered) in reply to Rick

    ah, yes, marketing people, who are always trying to guess what the customers want, or trying to influence the customers, but never, ever, consider actually TALKING TO THE CUSTOMERS!

  • Great (unregistered)

    wsj.com/

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