Facsimile servers for use on local area networks do not enjoy a particularly good reputation – the technology, and getting documents with strange file formats to transmit is tricky. Quite often management functions leave something to be desired. But it looks as if a series of upgrades from Castelle Corp will address a number of shortcomings and the Santa Clara-based company has also announced a $900 price reduction for its special function local net facsimile server, and is introducing a new model that supports two telephone lines. Its complete Novell Inc NetWare print server support enables printers to be attached to its serial port and its parallel port can service multiple servers and multiple queues. It now supports either Hewlett-Packard Co Printer Control Language or PostScript printers for facsimile printing and comes with a library of over 300 soft fonts. The print server features make the printers connected to a FaxPress available for all network printing and it can support up to 32 queues from eight file servers and usefully the box can now translate ASCII, PCX and either (selected at boot-time) PCL or PostScript pages directly into facsimile format, so the laser-printable output of most applications can route directly to a FaxPress outgoing facsimile. This is also true for ASCII, PCX and PCL or PostScript file attachments to messages sent through the FaxPress MHS electronic mail gateway, which is now compatible with Novell Messsage Handling System version 1.5. Castelle Fax Manager software improvements now mean that in addition to the previous supervisor, operator and user definable privileges for users, a new router privilege enables the user to view only the first page of an incoming fax. A new option prints a local confirmation copy of an outgoing facsimile. And it’s now possible to delete active facsimile jobs, and to delete pending queued printing. Token Ring models now offer switchable 4Mbps or 16Mbps support. Ethernet models offer switchable thick and thin Ethernet. A Castelle Programmer’s Interface package is available to developers at no cost until the end of the year. All the software features of FaxPress version 2.2 are available at no charge to existing customers covered by a Castelle maintenance agreement or extended warranty. Software and return-to-factory hardware upgrades (addition of second facsimile telephone line) are also available for purchase.
