HighWater PCI Plugins README

HighWater Multi Plugin Installer v5.1.1 September 2006

Contents

Supported Devices

ECRM (HW970/HW770)

• Non-serial devices.
• VR series devices.
• Knockout series devices.
• Mako series devices.
• Marlin series devices.
• Stingray series devices.

Linotronic/Scangraphic LI2/LI5 (HW972/HW772)

• Linotronic 200 series devices.
• Linotronic 300 series devices.
• Linotronic 500 series devices.
• Scangraphic LI2/LI5 based devices.
• Scantext LI2/LI5 based devices.

Ultre/Exxtra (HW774)

• Ultre 72 series devices.
• Ultre 94 series devices.
• Ultre 300/400 devices.
• Ultre 3000/4000 devices.
• Exxtra 300 series devices.

Exxtra Maxxima (HW775)

• Maxxima devices.

Agfa (HW976/HW776)

• Proset series devices.
• Accuset series devices.
• Selectset series devices.
• Avantra series devices.

Agfa Phoenix (HW777)

• Agfa Phoenix series devices.

Scitex Dolev (HW978/HW778)

• Dolev 100/200/250/400/450 devices.
• Dolev 800/800V devices.
• Dolev 4Press/4PressV/4News devices.

Limitations and Known Problems

Limitations

• The plugin currently supports film punching control for ECRM, Agfa and Scitex type 2 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 for them to be driven via the HW772 hardware and software. It is HighWater's understanding that this interface is optional on the Scangraphic Largo/Othello/Tempo/Apollo engines.
• There is currently no support for 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 and not 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 plugin provides no support for custom resolutions or colour separation mode features of the Ultre imagesetters.
• 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.
• The plugin has no control over Scitex Dolev Type 1 devices punching automatically if a punch is fitted to the engine.
• Support for the control of job position relative to punch position is limited to 'Center on punch' and image to punch gap for Dolev4Press/Dolev4PressV but has been tested on 4PressV engines only.
• There is no support for media feed and cut for Scitex Dolev Type 1 or Type 2 devices.

Known Problems

Canon BX printers

• When imaging to a Canon BX the Media Width & Media Length in the RIP Page Setup dialog must match the paper size loaded in the selected tray in the printer otherwise image positioning problems may occur. Users should always specify Centre on Media Width for all Page Setups. Output which is not centred may be cropped on the top and left edges.
• When switching between the trays on the Canon BX engine(s), you must have media in the tray you are switching from, otherwise the plugin will report hat there is no media in the tray you are switching to, even though there may be media available.
• Currently, when using the Multi-purpose tray, the engine assumes Universal paper size which is 297mm x 431.8mm.

ECRM imagesetters

• On some ECRM devices the MediaManager support intermittently causes an issue. If you experience this problem, edit the appropriate .4x0 configuration file and set the usemediamanager preference to 0. We are currently researching this issue.
• The plugins will not function in serial mode with ECRM VR36/VR45/Knockout 4550 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.

Linotronic 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 takeup cassette/no input cassette/image too big) is unreliable since the engine does not always report the current status correctly.

Agfa 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.

Dolev imagesetters

• When imaging to a Dolev 4PressV it is not possible to expose black margins.

Installation

• Double click on the 'HWPlugin v5.1.1 Installer' item to start the installation process. After starting the installer the 'Authenticate' dialog is displayed. Set the user name (this defaults to the login user name) to a user who has Administrator priviledges and enter the login password for the user on the 'Enter password or passphrase' edit box. Click 'OK'.
• On the main installer dialog, click OK.
• On the 'Select the Interface card type(s)...' dialog select the interface(s) that you are installing and the number of plugins needed (one plugin is required for each interface card).
• You can choose to install up to three plugins. The selection should be made on the following basis:
• If only one interface is being installed, select only the 'hwplugin - First Device' option and deselect the remaining two hwplugin options.
• If two interfaces are being installed, select 'hwplugin - First Device' and 'hwplugin2 - Second Device' options and deselect the 'hwplugin3 - Third Device' option.
• If three interfaces are being installed, select all three hwplugin options.
• Click 'OK'.
• The installer will begin the installation process. Part way through the installation the installer will search for RIPs installed on the target Mac. If at least one RIP is found a 'Select folder' dialog is displayed showing a list of found 'Devices' folders. Use this dialog to select the required Devices i.e. folder of the RIP that is to be used for output and in which the plugin components are to be installed (typically this is [RIP name]/SW/Devices).
• Click 'Choose'.
• Once the Installer has completed quit the Installer application. This may restart the Mac in order to complete installation of the driver software if this was installed/updated.

Revision History (Plugins)

Release 5.1.1 September 2006

• Added fix for image bit ordering on HW978 interface cards.

Release 5.1.0 May 2006

• Added support for HW978 interface cards.
• Added fix for punch related problem affecting only HW97x interface cards, where when punching was selected on plugin device configuration dialog, the output media would not be punched.
• Realigned code with PC v5.1.0 plugin.

Release 5.0.4 July 2005

• Add support for 97X series of interface cards.
• Add support for centering image on punch for 4Press/4PressV.

Release 5.0.3 November 2004

• Add ability to load second personality, HWFILE, to output simultaneously to file and device for debugging image corruption problems.

Release 5.0.2 September 2004

• Fix to displaying Dolev type 2 punch systems on the Configure device dialog.
• For Dolev type 1 devices allow user to set spinner speeds (via configuration file).

Release 5.0.1 June 2004

• Include new hw770_80_0001.rbf, hw778_20_0003.rbf, hw778_30_0003.rbf and hw778_40_0003.rbf files.

Release 5.0.1 December 2003

• Include new hw778_20_0003.rbf, hw778_30_0003.rbf and hw778_40_0003.rbf files.
• Improved display dialog under Mac OS X.
• Improved version reporting.
• Improved display of OS X error codes.
• Improved Avantra device Config Dialog.
• Improved behaviour if driver/personality load fails.
• Improved Agfa punch determination prior to communicting with device.

Release 5.0 July 2003

• First release of Mac OS X plugin.

Revision History (Personality libraries)

HW770/HW970 Release 5.1.9 May 2006

• Fix abiliy to switch between serial ports for HW970 interface cards.
• Fix failure to correctly set pad colour.
• When configured for an Autologic III 3850 device, we now ignore the connected signal as some engines drop this signal during output causing the job to fail with a 'device not connected' error.
• 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.

HW970 Release 5.1.8 June 2005

• First release of HW970.

HW770 Release 5.1.8 November 2004

• Fix data inversion.

HW770 Release 5.1.7 November 2004

• Fix for crash when reading personality version with two cards installed.

HW770 Release 5.1.6 September 2004

• Don't log message when no serial input received.

HW770 Release 5.1.5 December 2003

• Improved version reading/reporting.
• Improved error reporting.

HW770 Release 5.1.4. July 2003

• First release of Mac OS X compatible HW770 interface.

HW772/HW972 Release 5.1.2 May 2006

• Fix occassional crash/failure due to data incompatibility with user of DLL.
• Fixed issue which randomly caused cropped image output on Linotronic imagesetters.
• Improved retry behaviour of Linotronic 630 device software download.
• Report specific serial failure error.

HW972 Release 5.0.7 June 2005

• First release of HW972 interface.

HW772 Release 5.0.3 November 2004

• Fix for crash when reading personality version with two cards installed.

HW772 Release 5.0.2 September 2004

• Don't log message when no serial input received.

HW772 Release 5.0.1 December 2003

• Added support for Scantext device variant.
• Improved behaviour when waiting for engine to become ready.
• Improved version reading/reporting.
• Improved error reporting.

HW772 Release 5.0 July 2003

• First release of Mac OS X compatible HW772 interface.

HW774 Release 5.0.4 May 2006

• Improve reporting of engine errors e.g. media jam.
• Fix outputting huge margins.

HW774 Release 5.0.3 November 2004

• Fix for crash when reading personality version with two cards installed.

HW774 Release 5.0.2 September 2004

• Don't log message when no serial input received.

HW774 Release 5.0.1 December 2003

• Improved version reading/reporting.
• Improved error reporting.

HW774 Release 5.0 July 2003

• First release of Mac OS X compatible HW774 interface.

HW775 Release 5.0.4 May 2006

• Improve reporting of engine errors e.g. media jam.
• Fix outputting huge margins.

HW775 Release 5.0.3 November 2004

• Fix for crash when reading personality version with two cards installed.

HW775 Release 5.0.2 September 2004

• Don't log message when no serial input received.

HW775 Release 5.0.1 December 2003

• Improved version reading/reporting.
• Improved error reporting.

HW775 Release 5.0 July 2003

• First release of Mac OS X compatible HW775 interface.

HW976 Release 5.7.1 September 2006

• Improved serial comms reliability.
• Fix serial comms failure due to NULL characters in the data stream.
• Fix returning valid but incorrect engine parameters when serial request fails.
• Implementational fixes related to addition of HW976 interface card.
• Improved error reporting.

HW976 Release 5.7.0 May 2006

• First full release of HW976 interface card.
• Realigned code and version with PC release.

HW776 Release 5.3.3 September 2006

• Improved serial comms reliability.
• Fix serial comms failure due to NULL characters in the data stream.
• Fix returning valid but incorrect engine parameters when serial request fails.
• Implementational fixes related to addition of HW976 interface card.
• Improved error reporting.

HW776 Release 5.3.2 May 2006

• Realigned code and version with PC release.
• Fixes for cassette selection issues.

HW776 Release 5.1.9 December 2004

• Fix failure to image second job after first job had failed.

HW776 Release 5.1.6 November 2004

• Fix for crash when reading personality version with two cards installed.

HW776 Release 5.1.5 September 2004

• Added support for HW976 interface card.

HW776 Release 5.1.3 September 2004

• Fix failure to correctly initialise serial communications.
• Don't log message when no serial input received.

HW776 Release 5.1.2 December 2003

• Retain device identity for life of session to improve decision making.
• Resolved out-of-sync message/response behaviour.
• Fixed serial comms buffer problem which caused driver crash.
• Improved version reading/reporting.
• Improved error reporting.

HW776 Release 5.0 July 2003

• First release of Mac OS X compatible HW76 interface.

HW777 Release 5.3.3 September 2006

• Fix outputting non 32-bit aligned images.
• Improve reporting of engine errors e.g. out of media.
• Fix serial comms failure due to NULL characters in the data stream.
• Fix returning valid but incorrect engine parameters when serial request fails.
• Added fix for wide APIS selection issue.

HW777 Release 5.3.2 May 2006

• Realigned code and version with PC release.

HW777 Release 5.1.6 November 2004

• Fix for crash when reading personality version with two cards installed.

HW777 Release 5.1.5 September 2004

• Modifiy to support HW9xx cards.

HW777 Release 5.1.3 September 2004

• Fix failure to correctly initialise serial communications.
• Don't log message when no serial input received.

HW777 Release 5.1.2 December 2003

• Retain device identity for life of session to improve decision making.
• Resolved out-of-sync message/response behaviour.
• Fixed serial comms buffer problem which caused driver crash.
• Improved version reading/reporting.
• Improved error reporting.

HW777 Release 5.1 July 2003

• First release of Mac OS X compatible HW777 interface.

HW978 Release 5.0.9 September 2006

• Fix to Type 2 device identification.
• Fixes to image to punch positioning logic.
• Fix serial error on repeated attempts to gain serial control of the engine before imaging starts.
• Fix serial error prior to start of imaging due to asynchronous message from engine.
• Improve responsiveness of user interface while performing serial comms before and after image output.
• Fix incorrect number of punch systems being reported resulting in garbled punch system on punch selection droplist.

HW978 Release 5.0.8 May 2006

• First release of Mac OS X compatible HW978 interface.
• Same functionality as HW778 v5.1.0.

HW778 Release 5.1.1 September 2006

• Fix to Type 2 device identification.
• Fixes to image to punch positioning logic.
• Fix serial error on repeated attempts to gain serial control of the engine before imaging starts.
• Fix serial error prior to start of imaging due to asynchronous message from engine.
• Improve responsiveness of user interface while performing serial comms before and after image output.
• Fix incorrect number of punch systems being reported resulting in garbled punch system on punch selection droplist.

HW778 Release 5.1.0 May 2006

• Unsolicited message support.
• Fixes relating to testing interction with ofther HighWater products.
• Realigned code with PC release.

HW778 Release 5.0.9 June 2005

• Add support for image to punch positioning for 4Press/4PressV.

HW778 Release 5.0.6 November 2004

• Fix for crash when reading personality version with two cards installed.
• Fix for FIFO empty at start of job outputting to Dolev800V.
• Don't log message when no serial input received.
• Various fixes to Dolev type 2 punch serial communications causing code to crash, incorrectly set punch selection strings in the configure device dialog and failure to send correct punch selection to engine.
• Comment out byteorder field in configuration files.
• Add support for setting spinner speed on a per job basis for type 1 devices.
• Fix cassette selection for Dolev800/800V.

HW778 Release 5.0.4 August 2004

• Remove reporting of no characters received which resulted in huge logfiles.

HW778 Release 5.0.3 July 2004

• Fix crash when debug is set > 0.

HW778 Release 5.0.2 December 2003

• Improved version reading/reporting.
• Improved error reporting.

HW778 Release 5.0.1 July 2003

• First release of Mac OS X compatible HW778 interface.

Revision History (Low-level Driver)

Release 5.0.2 September 2006

• Fixed intermittent output failure reported on some Dual-CPU G4s, but may occur on any multi-CPU Mac. Occasionally a job would appear to complete correctly on the front-end but the engine would still be waiting for more data. As a result, subsequent jobs may fail to output until the engine is reset.
• Fixed intermittent serial hangup reported on some Dual-CPU G4s, but may occur on any multi-CPU Mac. Occasionally when starting a job a serial comms issue would prevent proper communications with the engine. This may result in a failure to output the current job with a serial related error message until the Rip is restarted.

Release 5.0.0 May 2006

• Added support for HW978 interface cards.
• Added support for Mac OS X 10.4.x compatibility.
• Fixed occasional failure to abort properly if a DMA Timeout occurred.
• Realigned code functionality with Windows PnP driver v5.2.7.

Release 4.2.3 May 2005

• Add support for HW97x interface cards.

Release 4.1.1 November 2003

• Corrected initialisation problem causing intermittent image data output and/or serial communication failures on some interface cards.

Release 4.0.9 July 2003

• First release of Mac OS X kernel driver.

Revision History (Configuration files)

September 2006

• For all Dolev4*.4x8 configuration files: Corrected setter size limits.
• For all Dolev8*.4x8 configuration files: Corrected setter size limits.

May 2006

• For all Dolev....4x8 configuration files: Corrected preload entry.
• For all Dolev....4x8 configuration files: Removed unrequired byteorder entry.
• For all Dolev....4x8 configuration files: Add entry to control bit order.
• For all Dolev....4x8 configuration files: Added entry to control amount of data preloaded onto card before starting engine output. Feature supported by HW978 interfaace only.

June 2005

• Added Dolev4PressV_WHP.4x8 configuration file.
• Added support for controlling spinner speed on Type 1 Dolev....4x8 devices.

December 2003

• Corrected setterlength value in Avantra30 and Avantra30E files.

July 2003

• First release of configuration files for Mac OS X.

RBF files - Version Information

This installer installs the following RBF files
RBF file name	Version number	Checksum
HW970_10_0001.rbf	4	0x14af78
HW972_10_0003.rbf	5	0x12BF10
HW972_20_0003.rbf	5	0x12BF10
HW976_20_0003.rbf	4	0x134F4F
HW978_10_0003.rbf	6	0x119304
HW978_20_0003.rbf	6	0x119304
HW770.rbf	9	0x0E4D34
HW770_40_0001.rbf	9	0x0E4D34
HW770_80_0001.rbf	12	0x15789A
HW772_20_0001.rbf	9	0x14A256
HW772_20_0002.rbf	9	0x14F7F8
HW772_30_0001.rbf	9	0x14A256
HW772_30_0002.rbf	9	0x14F7F8
HW772_40_0001.rbf	9	0x14A256
HW772_40_0002.rbf	9	0x14F7F8
HW774_20_0003.rbf	10	0x171CEF
HW774_30_0003.rbf	10	0x171CEF
HW775_10_0001.rbf	9	0x17EE2F
HW775_20_0001.rbf	9	0x17EE2F
HW776.rbf	4	0x0D65DB
HW776_20_0001.rbf	4	0x0D65DB
HW776_30_0001.rbf	4	0x0D65DB
HW777_30_0003.rbf	10	0x187D7A
HW778.rbf	No Ver	0x0DD398
HW778_20_0001.rbf	2	0x0D75D1
HW778_20_0003.rbf	4	0x0D30D6
HW778_30_0003.rbf	4	0x0D30D6
HW778_40_0003.rbf	4	0x0D30D6

Contents

This page last updated: 28th September 2006