'Remote Mode' and Dolev 4press imagesetter

[kksteinbrenner]

Long-time lurker, first-time poster, :-)

So our shop just bought a Dolev 4press running PS/M 7.0 from another nearby shop to replace our Agfa 1000 running the Xitron RIP.

So far, so good (once I recovered from seeing OS/9, an OS I thought we had left far behind years ago!). <hehehe>

Today, and intermittently for the past few days, when I send a job from PS/M 7.0 to the Dolev 4press, it might image one setup (usually 2 pages on 1 piece of film, like the C and M plates), but will then conk out and display a message on the LCD screen on the Dolev that says, "REMOTE MODE." A couple of times it didn't even do that--it displayed this interesting bitmapped pattern on the screen.

The PS/M application, when the "Remote Mode" is called, merely displays the message, "Plotter_set CommProblem" — whatever that means!

Has anyone seen this before? It's a good thing we still have our old imagesetter and RIP lying around... we can at least output something today!

--Kent

[rmichelena]

At the worst, you may have a bad VLSI2 or HOMC board in the Dolev, or bad SFL (Fiber) board in the Mac. Or TSP board if not using fiber.
But we always like to check things beginning with the least expensive.
So: sometimes when moved around, boards in a Dolev get somewhat loose.
Turn the machine off, open the left-hand door, take out a metal cover (if it's there, sometimes it isn't) and you'll see a variety of boards. You'll not be able to take them out fully (because of the cables, connectors and a metal stopper at the back of the machine) but you can pull them half an inch, (there are a couple of red plastic levers that help on this) and push them back in firmly, reseating them.
Also disconnect and reconnect the fiber or TSP cable, and do the same re-seating with the board in the mac.
This *might* take care of your problem if you're lucky.

If not, next in my list would be to switch ports. The Dolev 4press has two communication ports (to be used by two simultaneous rips); in the back there are two connectors, much alike a parallel port, labeled "Host A" and "Host B". Only one of these has a cable plugged in. Switch that cable to the other connector. Here, we're assuming that whatever host port is being used is faulty, so trying the other one might work.
If still same problem, next would be to reinstall the Dolev's internal software. You should have a diskette with the software, it installs automatically, you just have to pop it in the floppy drive that's down there where you saw all the boards and turn the machine on; ideally you connect a VGA monitor in the back of the machine (there's a VGA port connector there) to monitor the progress of the procedure, because it not always shows up in the LCD panel. You can also attach a keyboard, by the way.
You could also try reinstalling the PS/M software on the mac; or even a full reinstall of operating system and PS/M.

After all these, if problems persist, it's likely to be some board...

best luck,

Roberto