ProfitPress Mega CDROM2 …eeware (MSDOS)(1992)(Eng)/ProfitPress-MegaCDROM2.B6I/MISC/NETWORK/EZFAX.ZIP/EZFAX.TXT

Text File | 1992-02-03 | 11.1 KB | 209 lines

Compatibility Statement
Calculus EZ-FAX  v3.52 is compatible with LANtastic NOS version 4.xx.

Product Overview
The EZ-FAX product (advanced system) consists of an 8-bit ISA fax board
and the accompanying software for:
Sending Faxes: EZ-FAX supports sending plain text files and HP LaserJet
formatted files (by first converting them into an EZ-FAX format).  You
can also scan and store hardcopy documents into EZ-FAX to be faxed later.
You have the option of specifying the number of retries and scheduling a
fax to go out at a later time.  By a concept known as "virtual printer
device", EZ-FAX can emulate a printer to capture print streams produced
by an application and send the output as faxes.

Receiving Faxes: EZ-FAX is capable of receiving in-coming faxes.  You can
then 'edit' the fax using a graphics editor, e.g. PC Paintbrush or Dr. Halo.
Calculus has provided several conversion utilities to convert fax images (in
G3F Group 3 Fax format) to a format that can be fed into the graphics editor.
In addition, EZ-FAX allows you to view a fax on your terminal if you have a
graphics adapter.

Monitoring activities: EZ-FAX provides a console utility (the ezf menu) to
help you check for fax errors, maintain a phone directory, etc.  A separate
utility called ezfmodem is also provided which allows you to share the
telephone line between EZ-FAX and an internal or external data modem or a
telephone set.

Product Installation Notes
The first step in setting up your EZ-FAX system is to complete the hardware
installation on the PC acting as the fax server.  You will need to pay
attention to these items:
*       The EZ-FAX card with its high bandwidth coprocessor chip.
*       A dedicated single-line telephone line to be connected to the
        EZ-FAX card.
*       (optional) Scanners, which can be installed on the fax server or a
        workstation.
*       Printers.  EZ-FAX recognizes 4 types of printers:
      - Network Spooled Printer: any printer on the network ( e.g.
      \\<servername>\@printer ).  You need to specify to EZ-FAX which printers
      on the network it can use from the Change Options/Network Printers screen
      within their INSTALL utility.  The network printers are then referred by
      EZ-FAX as NSPOOL0, NSPOOL1, etc.  2 modes of printing faxes on a network
      printer are supported by EZ-FAX, and are documented in Appendix A Network
      Printing in the EZ-FAX LAN Installation Guide:
      Direct Network Printing (corresponds to the Network Printer Device
      parameter in Change Options/User Options): Do not redirect that port
      at the network level (i.e. that port cannot be used by other
      applications on the fax server).  Let the EZ-FAX Spooler talk directly
      to \\<servername>\@printer, or NSPOOLn.
      Captured Fax Server Printing (corresponds to the Spooled Printer Device
      parameter in Change Options/User Options ): Need to redirect at the
      network level.

      - Fax Server Spooled Printer (also corresponds to the Spooled Printer
      Device parameter in Change Options/User Options if the printer is
      connected as a local printer to the fax server): one of the printers
      installed on the fax server may be designated as the fax server spooled
      printer, referred by EZ-FAX as SPOOL.  The EZ-FAX print spooler manages
      this printer.

      - Local Spooled Printer: A printer on a workstation can be configured as
      a Local Spooled Printer using the DOS PRINT command.  This printer is
      referred to by EZ-FAX as LSPOOL.  On LANtastic, since local spooling
      is disabled once network despooling is enabled, this option is not
      available.

      - Local printer: you can refer to the local printers on a workstation
      within EZ-FAX by their usual names, e.g. LPT1, LPT2, etc.

      To use a printer belonging to any of these types within EZ-FAX, you
      need to first set it up as a logical printer through the Change Options
      /Printers screen in the INSTALL utility.

*       Expanded memory managers: EZ-FAX only runs in expanded, not extended
      memory.  See Memory Requirements section below for more details.

The key is to fit all these together.  You need to:

*       Avoid conflicts in the hardware settings for the network adapter,
      the scanner and the memory manager hardware (if applicable).  The I/O
      address and interrupt level of the EZ-FAX card will be configured
      automatically according to the parameters you specify from INSTALL
      during the software installation.

*       Configure all the devices properly in your config.sys.  During the
      EZ-FAX software installation, you need to enter the configurations of
      all of the above mentioned devices into the system.  Then, your
      config.sys and autoexec.bat in the root directory of your boot drive
      will be changed accordingly.  As a result, config.sys may contain the
      following lines:
                  FILES=35
                  BUFFERS=20
                  DEVICE=c:\dos\emm386.exe ram x=d000-d800
                                    /* for the memory manager */
                  DEVICE=c:\ezf\sjdriver.sys
                                    /* for the scanners */

      If you are using a network adapter that uses RAMBASE (e.g. Artisoft 2Mbps
      or some non-Artisoft adapters with LANtastic/AI), do not forget to
      exclude the RAMBASE address used by the adapter on the DEVICE line for
      the memory manager in config.sys.

Details about how to set up the directories and user access for using EZ-FAX on
a LANtastic network are described in Chapter 4 of the EZ-FAX LAN Installation
Guide.  Each workstation on the network can then share these facilities for
faxing by logging onto the server and putting the EZ-FAX directory in its DOS
path.   In addition, these 3 variables need to be set in your DOS environment:

      SET EZFPATH=<full path of EZ-FAX system directory>
      SET EZFCPATH=<EZ-FAX config directory if diff. from EZFPATH>
      SET EZFDPATH=<EZ-FAX data directory if diff. from EZFPATH>

Memory Requirements
Before you can use EZ-FAX, you need to load several TSR (terminate, stay
resident) programs:
On the fax server: ezfbs.exe - requires 166K of conventional memory.
                  (or 34K + 10 EMS pages)
On each workstation to provide virtual printer device (optional): ezfbw.exe
                  - requires 83K of conventional memory (or 7K + 6 EMS pages)

In addition, the ezf menu requires 160K of conventional memory, while displaying
faxes from within ezf needs 90K more.   Automatic use of expanded memory is
provided as an install option.  You may also want to refer to chapter 5 of
the EZ-FAX for Networks Addendum for more details.

Printing
For incoming faxes:   You can print them out manually through the Received
Documents option from the ezf menu onto a selected logical printer.   Also,
you can program EZ-FAX to automatically print incoming faxes out on a printer.
Of course, you need to define the logical printers accessible to EZ-Fax first
(which may belong to any of the 4 printer types described in the previous
section) during installation.For outgoing faxes :   A 'phantom' printer port
can be established by specifying one of the 'LPTn's (usually LPT3 by default)
as the Virtual Printer Device.  You can then enter your application program
(e.g. Wordperfect), create you fax document and then send it by 'printing'
to the virtual device.  The EZ-FAX User's Guide contains a whole chapter about
how to use EZ-FAX with other popular applications.  When using this feature,
the LPTn port involved should not be redirected to any resource at the network
level.

Product Execution Notes
The EZ-FAX product is being used in-house within Artisoft.  These are a few
tips we have gathered regarding the day-to-day administration of providing
this facility on the network:

1. Make sure that SHARE is being loaded after REDIR and before SERVER.  If
SHARE is loaded before REDIR, NOS 4.0 "locks" all of the printer resources,
even the ones that are not being used, thus interfering with the virtual
printer device.  The NOS 4.0 installation may not have set up the sequence
of loading REDIR, SHARE
and SERVER in this order, so you should check your autoexec.bat/startnet.bat
if you get a sharing violation when printing to the virtual printer device.

2. Since the TSR consumes memory on the workstation, we recommend that you only
load the TSR immediately before creating a fax, and then unload it immediately
after if there is not enough memory on your workstation to keep EZFBW loaded
all the time.  For example, the following batch file can be used to automate
this process on each workstation that uses Wordperfect with EZ-FAX:
                  rem     WP.BAT
                  rem     ====
                  ezfbw                   /* load the TSR */
                  wp                      /* invoke your application */
                  ezfmodem unload /* unload the TSR immediately */

3. The time it takes to 'print' a fax is dependent on the number of pages of
the fax document.

4. A problem was reported while using EZ-FAX with DesqView, a popular
windowing software.  Running EZ-FAX under Desqview is not recommended.

5. We've found that it does take a few seconds for ezfbs to be loaded
into memory before ezfmodem can run.  You may want to include these
lines in the autoexec.bat file for the fax server:
                  rem     AUTOEXEC.BAT on fax server
                  rem     ===============
                  ezfbs
                  wait          /* or other utilities to wait a few seconds */
                  ezfmodem srfax

6. Calculus recommends that if you have programmed EZ-FAX to automatically
print out incoming faxes to a printer, you should let the EZ-FAX spooler
control all regular print jobs going to that printer.  Otherwise, you may
risk getting incoming faxes in the middle of a regular print job if they
are controlled by different spoolers.

7. A trouble-shooting tip if you notice that faxes are suddenly not going
out: if the EZ-FAX server loses connection to the network printer machine,
all faxes that occur after the first print job (regular or for incoming
faxes) on the queue will be stacked up.  You will need to bring up the
printer again or delete the print job to stop it from holding up the queue.

8. Instead of using a scanner, you can use another fax machine to input
documents into EZ-FAX  by faxing to it.

9. EZ-FAX v3.52 advanced system supports a DOS and a Windows interface.
The Windows interface has not yet been tested in-house within Artisoft.

Vendor Information
Calculus, Inc.  522 Mercury Drive, Sunnyvale  CA 94086.
Tel: [phone]   Fax: [phone]

ARTISOFT, Inc. makes no warranties as to the completeness or accuracy of this
document.  LANtastic is a trademark of ARTISOFT, Inc.  Brand names, company
names, and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their
respective companies.