HP LaserJet3 - Signature Cartridge editing

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skibum

Our office has an old HP Laserjet III printer which uses a
customizable cartridge for printing signatures on cheques. The
"Customizable Cartridge"
was made by Pacific Data Products-no longer around. We need to keep
the
system going until we switch over to a new business system, but have
recently had an administrator change. Would anyone have information
on how to edit the cartridge with a new signature, or know where to
find information. We have the software on floppy (no readme files),
but no manual.
Assistance would be greatly appreciated
Thanks,
Skibum
 
Our office has an old HP Laserjet III printer which uses a
customizable cartridge for printing signatures on cheques. The
"Customizable Cartridge" was made by Pacific Data Products-no
longer around. We need to keep the
system going until we switch over to a new business system, but have
recently had an administrator change. Would anyone have information
on how to edit the cartridge with a new signature, or know where to
find information. We have the software on floppy (no readme files),
but no manual.
Click to expand...

You can see the Pacific Page site from 1996 at
<http://web.archive.org/web/19961113085345/http://www.pacdata.com/>

There isn't a manual there, but it has this:
Customizable Cartridge

Programmable cartridge for fonts, forms, logos and signatures. Have
you ever wished your soft fonts, forms, logos and signatures were
easier to use and didn't require downloading? With Pacific Data's
Customizable Cartridge you can eliminate the inconvenience associated
with using soft fonts, forms, logos and signatures on a LaserJet
printer. The Customizable Cartridge's unique design allows you to
store your favorite soft fonts, forms logos and signatures, right in
the cartridge. No more downloading - no more waiting. And they remain
in the cartridge even if the printer has been turned off.

The cartridge comes with 3/4 MB or 1.5 MB of Flash memory which allows
you to reconfigure the cartridge anytime you wish. So as your printing
needs change, so can your cartridge. Don't be restricted by a
cartridge manufacturer's selection of fonts - simply choose the fonts
that are right for your applications.

The Customizable Cartridge provides an easy-to-use, menu driven
installation program that allows you to select and download directly
from your computer to the cartridge. Special printer driver utilities
are included which revise your applications each time you reconfigure
the cartridge. This enables your favorite software program to reflect
exactly which fonts, forms, logos and signatures are available in the
cartridge.

============
Presumably your floppies include the "menu driven installer". First
back it up! Then play with it.

My guess is that it will have functions to convert an image (i.e. the
signature, probably as a TIFF) to a PCL font and install it on the
cart.
 
(e-mail address removed) (Alan) wrote in
(e-mail address removed) (skibum) wrote in message


You can see the Pacific Page site from 1996 at
<http://web.archive.org/web/19961113085345/http://www.pacdata.com/>

There isn't a manual there, but it has this:
Customizable Cartridge

Programmable cartridge for fonts, forms, logos and signatures. Have
you ever wished your soft fonts, forms, logos and signatures were
easier to use and didn't require downloading? With Pacific Data's
Customizable Cartridge you can eliminate the inconvenience associated
with using soft fonts, forms, logos and signatures on a LaserJet
printer. The Customizable Cartridge's unique design allows you to
store your favorite soft fonts, forms logos and signatures, right in
the cartridge. No more downloading - no more waiting. And they remain
in the cartridge even if the printer has been turned off.

The cartridge comes with 3/4 MB or 1.5 MB of Flash memory which allows
you to reconfigure the cartridge anytime you wish. So as your printing
needs change, so can your cartridge. Don't be restricted by a
cartridge manufacturer's selection of fonts - simply choose the fonts
that are right for your applications.

The Customizable Cartridge provides an easy-to-use, menu driven
installation program that allows you to select and download directly
from your computer to the cartridge. Special printer driver utilities
are included which revise your applications each time you reconfigure
the cartridge. This enables your favorite software program to reflect
exactly which fonts, forms, logos and signatures are available in the
cartridge.

============
Presumably your floppies include the "menu driven installer". First
back it up! Then play with it.

My guess is that it will have functions to convert an image (i.e. the
signature, probably as a TIFF) to a PCL font and install it on the
cart.
Click to expand...

Nifty! I wonder if one of those would be useful with a LaserJet 4M
and Windows 2000?
 
Gregg E. said:
Nifty! I wonder if one of those would be useful with a LaserJet 4M
and Windows 2000?
Click to expand...

That particular cartridge wouldn't be compatible with the 4M, but you
can find something comparable.
Eg, <http://www.micro-micr.com/fonts.htm> has some cartridges, which
you can have loaded with custom fonts or graphics. Also SIMMs.
This company <http://www.g7ps.com/scripts/simm.asp> has reprogrammable
"SmartSIMMs", very expensive at $380 for 1MB.

Note that with the 4M, if you're using it in PostScript mode that
you'd want your graphics to be PostScript forms or fonts rather than
PCL macros or fonts.

Even without the custom hardware you can download fonts and forms to
the printer RAM and they'll be available until the printer is reset.
If you have minimal RAM, adding more is much cheaper than the stuff
above. See
<http://www.shawnbehrens.de/hpmem.htm> for how to do it on the cheap.
I download a batch of postscript fonts that I use so they don't have
to be included in every print file.

My HP4M came with 10 MB, (2MB built in, 2 x 4MB) I've got one SIMM
slot free so I'm looking for a cheap 8MB stick to fill it (or replace
the current two 4MB sticks with 8's to get the maximum).
 
You can see the Pacific Page site from 1996 at
<http://web.archive.org/web/19961113085345/http://www.pacdata.com/>

There isn't a manual there, but it has this:
Customizable Cartridge

Programmable cartridge for fonts, forms, logos and signatures. Have
you ever wished your soft fonts, forms, logos and signatures were
easier to use and didn't require downloading? With Pacific Data's
Customizable Cartridge you can eliminate the inconvenience associated
with using soft fonts, forms, logos and signatures on a LaserJet
printer. The Customizable Cartridge's unique design allows you to
store your favorite soft fonts, forms logos and signatures, right in
the cartridge. No more downloading - no more waiting. And they remain
in the cartridge even if the printer has been turned off.

The cartridge comes with 3/4 MB or 1.5 MB of Flash memory which allows
you to reconfigure the cartridge anytime you wish. So as your printing
needs change, so can your cartridge. Don't be restricted by a
cartridge manufacturer's selection of fonts - simply choose the fonts
that are right for your applications.

The Customizable Cartridge provides an easy-to-use, menu driven
installation program that allows you to select and download directly
from your computer to the cartridge. Special printer driver utilities
are included which revise your applications each time you reconfigure
the cartridge. This enables your favorite software program to reflect
exactly which fonts, forms, logos and signatures are available in the
cartridge.

============
Presumably your floppies include the "menu driven installer". First
back it up! Then play with it.

My guess is that it will have functions to convert an image (i.e. the
signature, probably as a TIFF) to a PCL font and install it on the
cart.
Click to expand...

Thanks and yes, the software has the menu driven
installer(Custcart.exe). In stepping through it we found that it
requires Windows 3.0/2.x and/or Wordperfect 5.1 in order to point to
the file you want to use. We had no problem connecting to the printer,
but not sure how to view/edit the cartridge that is loaded. Also, we
only had Windows 3.1 and Wordperfect 5.2 available here, so maybe they
aren't compatible with the program. We'll have to try to find the
correct Windows O/S or Wordperfect version - just time consuming to do
all that if it's "all for not'"
Any other knowledge you have on this subject?
 
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