HighWater PCI Plugins README

HighWater PCI Plugins README


HighWater Multi Plugin Installer November 2005

Installation

Make sure there are no other applications running, and no MS-DOS command windows open. Insert the HighWater PrePress Solutions CD into the drive.

If you have an Internet Web browser:
After a short delay your default web browser should automatically open a home page from the CD. Follow the instructions for installation. If your default web browser does not open automatically, follow the instructions below for installing without a web browser.

If you do not have an Internet Web browser:
Read the "INSTALLING FROM A WEB BROWSER?" section of the Readme.txt file at the top level of the CD, and follow the instructions, to start the HighWater Imager installer.

NOTE: Installation of these plugins on Windows 2000, XP or Server 2003 platforms requires the Windows 2000 HighWater PCI Driver. The Windows 2000 Driver is available on the HighWater Designs Pre-Press Solutions CD.


Contents

ECRM (HW970/HW770)
Linotronic/Scangraphic LI2/LI5 (HW972/HW772)
Ultre/Exxtra (HW774)
Exxtra Maxxima (HW775)
Agfa (not Phoenix) (HW976/HW776)
Agfa Phoenix (HW777)
Linotronic 630 (HW972/HW772)
Scangraphic FPI (HW773)
Scitex Dolev (HW978/HW778)
Revision History Plugins
Revision History (Personality libraries)
Revision History ECRM (HW970/HW770)
Revision History Linotronic/Linotronic 630 (HW972/HW772)
Revision History Scangraphic FPI (HW773)
Revision History Ultre/Exxtra/Maxxima (HW774/HW775)
Revision History Agfa (not Phoenix) (HW976/HW776)
Revision History Agfa Phoenix (HW777)
Revision History Scitex Dolev (HW978/HW778)
Revision History (Low-level Driver)
RBF files - Version Information
Configuration File Changes
Linotronic630 Configuration Program Changes
Technical Support


ECRM / Linotronic/Scangraphic/Linotronic630 / Ultre/Exxtra / Exxtra Maxxima / Agfa / Agfa Phoenix / Scitex Dolev

Version: 5.0.9
Date: November 2005
Platforms: Windows NT / 2000 / XP / Server 2003 INTEL*

*Note: The HW97X series cards are not compatible with Windows NT

Limitations

  • The plugin currently supports film punching control for ECRM and Agfa imagesetters, where appropriate, if serial comms is enabled. For other imagesetters the User must configure the imagesetter directly to perform this operation when required if the option is available.
  • Scangraphic engines must have the LI2/LI5 interface available on the engine in order that we may drive them using the HW772 hardware and software. It is our understanding that this interface is optional on the Scangraphic Largo/Othello/Tempo/Apollo engines.
  • There is currently no support provided for punch or exposure control, feed or cut features of Scangraphic engines through the LI2/LI5 interface. This is a limitation of the LI5 interface in the engine, not the HighWater software or hardware.
  • Paper feed around page is only available for devices which support host serial control over feed and feed length. For devices such as non-serial ECRMs this feature will have no effect.
  • The HighWater plugin provides no support for exposure control or feed or cut features of Scangraphic engines through the HW773 FPI interface card. This is a limitation of the FPI interface in the engine, not the HighWater software or hardware.
  • The Plugin provides no support for custom resolutions or colour separation mode features of the Ultre imagesetters.
  • The HighWater plugin has no control over Scitex Dolev Type 1 devices punching automatically if a punch is fitted in the engine. Plugin v4.1a2 and later provides support for selection of an engine-defined punch system through the Scitex interface for Scitex Dolev Type 2 devices.
  • Support for the control of job position relative to punch position (centre on punch) has been proven on Dolev4PressV head punch only.
  • There is no support for media feed or cut features on Scitex Dolev Type1 or Type 2 devices.
  • It is not possible to output black margins when outputting to a Dolev 4PressV.
  • HW778/978 Dolev interface does not support independent slow scan and fast scan resolutions for Type1 or Type2 devices.
  • Use of the Scangaphic FPI interface with other HighWater PCI interface cards in the same platform has not been tested. Hence it is recommended that the Scangraphic FPI interface card is NOT used with other HighWater PCI interface cards at this time.
  • The plugin now supports more than one Scangraphic FPI interface card in the same system but this has not been tested and hence is not currently recommended..
  • Currently the engine must be fully booted and set to FPI interface mode, before running the RIP.

Known Problems

ECRM imagesetters

  • The Plugin will not function in serial mode with ECRM VR/Mako/Oasis/ Knockout engines with firmware revisions of 2.1.1 or earlier. This is due to a bug in the imagesetter firmware. Users should upgrade their ECRM firmware to 2.2.1 or later and ensure that the imagesetter is configured in 'Serial' mode.

Linotronic/Scangraphic imagesetters

  • Linotronic/Scangraphic imagesetters do not support host control over feed amount, hence any feeds performed by the RIP will amount to a fixed length feed as defined on the imagesetter.
  • Error reporting (such as no take-up cassette/no input cassette/image too big) is unreliable since the engine does not always report the current status correctly.

Agfa / Agfa Phoenix imagesetters

  • Some of the older Agfa imagesetters do not correctly report error conditions such as no output cassette or no media until they start imaging. This can cause jobs which should fail immediately to take a few minutes to fail and to fail with an error which does not reflect the true cause of the problem.

Scangraphic FPI imagesetters

  • When re-outputting jobs which have a punch specified after restarting the RIP, the plugin will only select the correct punch if the FPI device was the currently selected device (via the 3rd pull-down menu from the main menu bar) when the RIP was shutdown last. This will be addressed in a later release.
  • Scangraphic FPI imagesetters do not support host control over feed or cut features, hence any feeds/cuts set on the RIP will have no effect on the imagesetter. These options should be controlled from the imagesetter control panel.

General

  • On some imagesetters the advance amounts are not accurate. In some cases this can be caused by other devices connected to the imagesetters, such as Online Processors or media buffering devices.

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Revision History (Plugins)

Release 5.0.9 November 2005

  • Corrected problem preventing plugin from running on RIP versions between 5.5 and 6.0.
  • Corrected operation of the Agfa device configuration file 'cassetteselect' option (used to enable/disable plugin control of the Agfa engine input cassette).
  • Corrected problem where operating system detection software reported the wrong operating system in the log file.

Release 5.0.8 June 2005

  • First release of v5.x.x plugins supporting the HW97X PCI interface cards.

Release 5.0 August 2001

  • First official release with Agfa Phoenix support via HW777 interface card.
  • Added startup message to RIP monitor and log file to display Personality Firmware Version (RBF file version) for HW77x series interface cards.

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Revision History (Personality libraries)

ECRM

HW970 Release 5.0.7 November 2005

  • We now ignore the connected signal when configured for an Autologic III 3850 device.
  • Improved error report when an out of media condition is detected on ECRM devices.
  • Fixed bug causing media feed operations to always advance the media by the engines current feed distance, rather than the requested feed distance.

HW970 Release 5.0.5 June 2005

  • First release of HW970.dll.

HW770 Release 5.0.7 November 2005

  • We now ignore the connected signal when configured for an Autologic III 3850 device.
  • Improved error report when an out of media condition is detected on ECRM devices.
  • Fixed bug affecting invert video operation on HW770 interface cards.
  • Fixed bug causing media feed operations to always advance the media by the engines current feed distance, rather than the requested feed distance.

HW770 Release 5.0.2 July 2005

  • Fix problem causing output failure of all but first job when used with v5.x or later plugin.

HW770 Release 5.0.1 January 2002

  • Fix so we don't try and interpret .BUSY as anything other than BUSY.

HW770 Release 5.0.1b6 January 2002

  • Increased serial communication timeout to cope with ECRM models with slow / unresponsive comms.

HW770 Release 5.0 November 2000

  • Full support for new ECRM models (Mako 56, Stingray 52/63, Marlin 46/63).
  • Corrected serial feed control for Mako series.
  • Added support for separate data handling for multiple processes accessing the same DLL.

HW770 Release 4.09 August 2000

  • Removed reset of interface to non-serial mode after having been switched into serial mode. This seemed to correct odd serial timeout problems with Knockout 4550 imagesetters. This may also help improve serial behaviour on other models.

HW770 Release 4.08 March 2000

  • Improved serial comms resync and fixed driver error retrieval and reporting. Previously the RIP plugin could have reported incorrect error messages for output failures (e.g. "FIFO empty during DMA - PCI Bus problem?").

HW770 Release 4.08b1 February 2000

  • Implemented serial communications resync after command failure. This should overcome problems on engines where serial behaviour was previously erratic.

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Linotronic

HW972 Release 5.1.1 November 2005

  • Fixed issue which randomly caused cropped image output on Linotronic imagesetters.
  • Improved retry behaviour of Linotronic 630 device software download.

HW972 Release 5.0.9 June 2005

  • First release of HW972.dll.

HW772 Release 5.1.1 November 2005

  • Fixed issue which randomly caused cropped image output on Linotronic imagesetters.
  • Improved retry behaviour of Linotronic 630 device software download.

HW772 Release 5.0.3 July 2005

  • Fix problem causing output failure of all but first job when used with v5.x or later plugin.

HW772 Release 5.0.2 November 2002

  • Improved serial communications by removing garbage characters from the string.

HW772 Release 5.0 January 2002

  • Added support for separate data handling for multiple processes accessing the same DLL.

HW772 Release 4.20 November 2001

  • Fixed bug in serial communication functions which was causing occasional erroneous serial communication errors (reporting bad/invalid response).
  • Improved handling of serial communication errors. Will now detect erroneous replies from the imagesetter more reliably.

HW772 Release 4.19 August 2001

  • Corrected SwitchRecorderMode operation affecting Linotronic 630 imagesetters.

HW772 Release 4.18 November 2000

  • Corrected SwitchRecorderMode operation affecting some Scangraphic Tempo imagesetters (bug introduced in v4.17).
  • Corrected error handling of failure to get LI2 receiver page signal from connected engine.

HW772 Release 4.17 March 2000

  • Fixed a bug where serial comms was not being handled correctly when two plugins of different version (i.e. v3 & v4) were being used to output to two cards of the same type in the same PC.
  • Improvements to SwitchRecorderMode so that it validates the parameters sent when enabling the engine. Tested successfully on Scangraphic Apollo and Tempo. Scangraphic engines now report retry requests properly if Switch does NOT work, (if li5devtype set to 3).

HW772 Release 4.16 March 2000

  • Fixed driver error retrieval and reporting. Previously the RIP plugin could have reported incorrect error messages for output failures (e.g. "FIFO empty during DMA - PCI Bus problem?").

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Scangraphic FPI

HW773 Release 5.0.4 July 2005

  • Fix problem causing output failure of all but first job when used with v5.x or later plugin.

HW773 Release 5.0.3 September 2002

  • Improved support for multiple (same) cards in a machine being used by the same process. Bug fix for intermittent failure to see interface in some machines.

HW773 Release 4.06 March 2000

  • Fixed driver error retrieval and reporting. Previously the RIP plugin could have reported incorrect error messages for output failures (e.g. "FIFO empty during DMA - PCI Bus problem?").

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Ultre/Exxtra/Maxxima

HW774 Release 5.0.1 July 2005

  • Fix problem causing output failure of all but first job when used with v5.x or later plugin.

HW774 Release 5.0 January 2002

  • Fixed so that extended machine information is only read for suitable machines.
  • Added support for separate data handling for multiple processes accessing the same DLL.

HW774 Release 4.08 April 2001

  • Modified so that the improved detection of engine type is only implemented for Ultre 3000/4000 device types.

HW774 Release 4.07 March 2000

  • Fixed driver error retrieval and reporting. Previously the RIP plugin could have reported incorrect error messages for output failures (e.g. "FIFO empty during DMA - PCI Bus problem?").

HW775 Release 5.0.1 July 2005

  • Fix problem causing output failure of all but first job when used with v5.x or later plugin.

HW775 Release 5.0 November 2002

  • Fixed so that extended machine information is only read for suitable machines.
  • Added support for separate data handling for multiple processes accessing the same DLL.

HW775 Release 4.09 April 2002

  • Fixed problem with unsupported commands.

HW775 Release 4.08 April 2001

  • Modified so that the improved detection of engine type is only implemented for Ultre 3000/4000 device types.

HW775 Release 4.07 March 2000

  • Fixed driver error retrieval and reporting. Previously the RIP plugin could have reported incorrect error messages for output failures (e.g. "FIFO empty during DMA - PCI Bus problem?").

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Agfa (not Phoenix)

HW976 Release 5.7 June 2005

  • First release of HW976.dll.

HW776 Release 5.3.1 July 2005

HW776 Release 5.3 November 2002

  • Modified to prevent zero value feeds being attempted.

HW776 Release 5.2 October 2002

  • Modified so that PrePageFeed and PostPageFeed are executed regardless of how small the user-requested feeds are. The minimum distance fed is 1cm, which is a restriction of all Agfa engines.
  • Added support for separate data handling for multiple processes accessing the same DLL.

HW776 Release 4.11 March 2000

  • Fixed driver error retrieval and reporting. Previously the RIP plugin could have reported incorrect error messages for output failures (e.g. "FIFO empty during DMA - PCI Bus problem?").

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Agfa Phoenix

HW777 Release 5.3.1 July 2005

  • Fix problem causing output failure of all but first job when used with v5.x or later plugin.

HW777 Release 5.3 November 2002

  • Modified to prevent zero value feeds being attempted.

HW777 Release 5.2 October 2002

  • Modified so that PrePageFeed and PostPageFeed are executed regardless of how small the user-requested feeds are. The minimum distance fed is 1cm, which is a restriction of all Agfa engines.

HW777 Release 5.1 July 2001

  • First official release with Phoenix support.

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Scitex Dolev

HW978 Release 5.04 June 2005

  • First release of HW978.dll.
  • Support more than one interface card in same PC.
  • Add support for centering image on head/side punch on 4PressV/4Press*.

HW778 Release 5.0.4 July 2005

  • First release of HW778.dll supporting multiple cards in the same PC.
  • Support image centering on punch for 4PressV/4Press*.
*Tested to 4PressV only.

HW778 Release 1.8 July 2005

  • Fix problem causing output failure of all but first job when used with v5.x or later plugin.

HW778 Release 1.7 March 2005

  • Fix to failure to output image data to Type 1 engine.

HW778 Release 1.6 November 2004

  • Fix to 4PressV support - not setting margins correctly.
  • Fix FIFO empty error outputting to Dolev800V.
  • Various fixes to obtaining and displaying punch system information for type 2 devices.
  • Add ability to control engine spinner speed.

HW778 Release 1.3.6 March 2003

  • Fix buffer overrun encoding to type 2 serial commands.
  • Fix double increment of sequence number.

HW778 Release 1.3.5 October 2002

  • Fix to output of second job to Dolev 4press.

HW778 Release 1.3b4 September 2002

  • Removal of unused code.

HW778 Release 1.35b3 August 2002

  • Allow exposure values up to 4095 to be set for type 1 devices to fit with updated engine firmware - Microversion 10, CID=5; subversion='g'.
  • Increase serial timeout on type 1 cancel command waiting for reply.
  • Reset serial timeout to default when starting a new job (reconnecting to engine).

HW778 Release 1.35b1 June 2002

  • Allow exposure values up to 3000 to be set (instead of 1023) for Type 1 devices.

HW778 Release 1.34 June 2002

  • Fix to punch support logic.
  • Fix to handling comms from Type 2 device. Missing first character of asynchronous status messages with STATUS_UNKNOWN when more than one status message arrives.

HW778 Release 1.34a0 May 2002

  • Fixes to support for punching for 4Press.

HW778 Release 1.3.3b3 February 2002

  • Some calls to HWDBprintf have level and msg type parameters mixed up causing Mac build to crash.

HW778 Release 1.3.3b2 January 2002

  • If exposure value passed to dll for Type2 device is <=0 send USE_DEFAULT value to engine.

HW778 Release 1.3.3b1 September 2001

  • Revert SetPunchInfo logic to pre 1.3.2a2.
  • Fix crash when getting T2 plotter info from engine (buffer too small).

HW778 Release 1.3.2 August 2001

  • Fix inability to output maximum size jobs to 200, 250, 400, 450 and 800/ 800V.
  • Add ability to read media remaining for type 1 devices.

HW778 Release 1.09 October 2000

  • Implement data negation.
  • Fix failure to output to type 1 device when dll is used with Imager.

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Revision History Linotronic 630 Configuration Tool - Config630

Release 1.0 November 2001

  • First release of the Linotronic630 configuration tool.

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Revision History (Low-level Driver)

For Windows2000, XP and Server2003 this installer does not install the low-level driver. A new plug-and-play driver v5.x.x is installed using the Install New Hardware wizard that runs when the PC is booted after first installing the interface card(s) or on reboot after moving at least one card to a different slot from which it was originally installed.

Release 5.2.3 14th April 2005

  • Add support for 97X cards - .inf file change only.
  • Fix 97X serial comms using 19200 baud rate.

Release 5.2.2 1st April 2005

  • Fix failure to output serial comms when using CTS-RTS flow control setup.

Release 5.2.1 1st January 2005

  • First release of HighWater PCI interface card PnP driver.

Release 4.11 July 2002

  • Fixed bug which incorrectly allowed a process to queue further data buffers for output after a DMA timeout error.
  • Corrected PLX DMA abort sequence (no known problems in the field).
  • Corrected 26C91 UART timings (no known problems in the field).

Release 4.09 June 2001

  • Added support for HW777 and HW779 interface cards.

Release 4.08 November 2000

  • Removed Line Overrun error handling, this firmware feature was never actually released to production interface cards.

Release 4.07 May 2000

  • Corrected problem causing Blue Screen of Death crash, due to slow serial handling for fast baud rates (19200/38400 baud). NOTE: Currently the only imagesetter which supports >9600 baud serial, is the Linotronic 630.

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RBF files - Version Information

This installer installs the following RBF files

RBF file nameVersion numberChecksum
HW970_10_0001.rbf1145733
HW972_10_0003.rbf1127B35
HW972_20_0003.rbf1127B35
HW976_20_0001.rbf112AFEE
HW978_10_0003.rbf111C7DF
HW770.rbf9E4D34
HW770_40_0001.rbf9E4D34
HW770_80_0001.rbfC15789A
HW772_20_0001.rbf914A256
HW772_20_0002.rbf914F7F8
HW772_30_0001.rbf914A256
HW772_30_0002.rbf914F7F8
HW772_40_0001.rbf914A256
HW772_40_0002.rbf914F7F8
HW773.rbf315F811
HW773_20_0001.rbf315F811
HW773_30_0001.rbf315F811
HW773_40_0001.rbf315F811
HW774_20_0003.rbfA171CEF
HW774_30_0003.rbfA171CEF
HW775_10_0001.rbf917EE2F
HW775_20_0001.rbf917EE2F
HW776.rbf4D65DB
HW776_20_0001.rbf4D65DB
HW776_30_0001.rbf4D65DB
HW777_30_0003.rbfA187D7A
HW778.rbfNo verDD398
HW778_20_0001.rbf2D75D1
HW778_20_0003.rbf4D30D6
HW778_30_0003.rbf4D30D6
HW778_40_0003.rbf4D30D6
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Configuration File Changes

  • Corrected preload entry in all Dolev....4x8 configuration files.
  • For all Dolev....4x8 configuration files remove unrequired byteorder entry.
  • For Dolev type 1 devices added control for setting spinner speed.
  • Added new configuration file Dolev4PressV_WHP.4x8 (reduced imageable area for 4PressV fitted with head punch).
  • For all Dolev engines and 978 cards add entry to control amount of data preloaded onto card before starting engine output.
  • For all Dolev engines and 978 cards add entry to control bit order.

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Technical Support

For technical support please contact your support representative.


This page last updated: 14th November 2005