Hewlett-packard Company

Mark E Hodges

Gregory Alton Vaughn

Harold C Ockerse

Shell Sterling Simpson

Chris Richard Gunning

Cooper G Urie

Mark A Fahrenkrug

Richard Detweiler

Matt Howell

Scott D Bonar

James H Bigelow

Jamie Escandon

A method for establishing two-way communications between a host system and a device when the address of the device is initially unknown. The host system submits a job to a device with the job including address and other information required for the device to respond with the device's address. Once the host system has the device address, the host system and the device can establish bi-directional communications. In a print job, a print job language (PJL) command known as SOCKETPING is used to transmit the information between a print client and a printer. The SOCKETPING command includes fields for host system address family, protocol, address, and port as well as extensions to define job status reporting parameters. The printer responds to the SOCKETPING command with the necessary address information for the printer and job status reports as specified in the SOCKETPING extensions.

Method and apparatus for establishing two-way communication with a remote printer

A system and method dynamically allocate memory to a RAM disk. Upon a file transfer to the RAM disk, a device driver determines an amount of memory required by the RAM disk then requests the required amount of memory from a memory manager. As files are deleted from the RAM disk, the memory is released from the RAM disk by informing the memory manager of the addresses of the memory to be released. Sector freelists tracks each cluster of memory allocated to the RAM disk. When a sector becomes inactive, a corresponding bit in a sector freelist indicates the inactive status of the sector. When all of the sectors in a cluster are inactive, the cluster is released for the RAM disk.

Dynamic RAM disk

In an imaging system including firmware and a user interface control panel, a firmware-based internal page component is capable of receiving and registering internal page data from a source external to the page component itself. The internal page component can install a control panel display menu item corresponding to the registered internal page, and then capture user control panel input relating to that page. The component can then open a data pipe, and invoke the internal page data. The data pipe can be provided in the form of a VIO channel, e.g., invoking a print job, or can involve converting internal page data to a format capable of being viewed by a web browser. The internal page component can be installed as a part of the firmware of the imaging system. Internal page data can be received from a source external to the imaging system firmware, for example, from a storage device such as a flash disk, RAM disk, or hard disk. The internal page component can be embodied as a firmware-based dynamic internal page system. The internal page system includes an internal page registration mechanism adapted and constructed to register internal pages from page sources external to the firmware of the imaging system. The internal page system also includes an internal page retrieval mechanism adapted and constructed to selectively retrieve internal pages from the page sources. A method of handling internal pages in an imaging system including firmware is also provided.

Dynamic internal page registration and retrieval system

Dynamically allocable RAM disk

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Boise, ID, United States of America

Mark E Hodges