A year or so ago, Dataproducts Corp came up with the idea of Virtual Printer Technology, which enables a single printer to be configured as multiple different virtual printers (CI No 2,190). Now the Woodland Hills, California-based Hitachi Ltd affiliate it’s owned by Hitachi Koki Co Ltd these days – has changed up a gear and moved on to Virtual Printer Technology, Level 2 with its new 30 image-per-minute Typhoon 30 printer, which can be configured as up to 64 individual virtual printers, each with a unique configuration. Two control and management modes are supported: a system administrator can use the Remote Console Facility to plug a terminal directly into the printer and conduct a dialogue with system management functions, and install, modify or change settings for the Ethernet-connect module, or the network manager can log on to the device over the network and, using a standard Telnet application, open a terminal emulation session to install and control the printer. Level 2 adds the ability to configure individual virtual printers’ input paper trays, paper size, page orientation, emulations, duplex or simplex operation, paper output stacker, job priorities and a wide variety of other configuration parameters, and incorporates resource accounting by virtual printer, so that an administrator can keep track of printer use for up to 64 individual users and charge back appropriately to different departments. A remarkable 22 different network operating systems are supported, and multiple protocols, including Digital Equipment Corp’s LAT, Unix TCP/IP, Novell Inc’s IPX and Macintosh EtherTalk are supported concurrently.
