IEEE 1284 Related Standard's Activities

This area provides a snapshop of what is going on in the various Printer and Parallel Port related IEEE activities.

The IEEE 1284-1994 standard was approved in March of 1994. At that time the 1284 committee was disbanded and is no longer active. The current 1284 "dot" committees are involved in developing NEW standards that are related to the 1284 standard, but will not replace or change the released 1284 standard.

You may obtain a copy of the IEEE 1284 standard by calling the IEEE 1 (800) 678-IEEE (4333). The cost is $61.50 for non-IEEE members and $34.00 for members.

Currently there are, or have been, four working groups developing new standards that create additional support for the 1284 interface. These are new standards and not revisions of the current IEEE 1284-1994 released standard. The exception to this is the P1284R committee.

The committee meetings are open to any interested party. You do need to be an IEEE-SA member in order to participate in the standards development. If you are interested in becoming involved please send email to the chair of the committee.
(Note: The "P" designation before the standard number stands for proposed. When the standard is approved the P is removed.)

"Revision and update for IEEE Standard 1284-1994"

Every five years an IEEE standard needs to be reviewed. The outcome of this process is either: 1) Reaffirmation as a standard without changes; 2) Reaffirmation with revisions, editorial or functional; or 3) Discontinued. The current IEEE 1284-1994 is going through option 2 and being updated for editorial issues and content.

Status: Has finalized revision review and is being prepared for balloting in Q1, 2000

Chair: Don Wright, Lexmark don@lexmark.com, Phone 1 (606) 232-4808.

"Standard for Information Technology for Transport Independent Printer/Scanner Interface (TIP/SI)"

This committee is developing a standard for the control and management of printer and scanner related jobs. This work is based upon the NPAP protocol developed by the Network Printing Alliance (NPA).

Status: Approved and released

Chair: Don Wright, Lexmark don@lexmark.com, Phone 1 (606) 232-4808.
To access ftp in order to download P1284.1 related files, click here.

"Standard for Test, Measurement and Conformance to IEEE Std. 1284"

 
This committee is working to develop a standard test suite that can be implemented to test and verify peripherals, host adapters and cable assemblies for conformance to the 1284 standard.

Next meeting: None scheduled- Standard has been stalled prior to balloting and is not active at this time.

Chair: Mike Moldovan, G3/Nova, mmoldovan@g3nova.com,

"Standard for Interface and Protocol Extensions to IEEE Std. 1284 Compliant Peripheral and Host Adapter Ports"

This committee is developing the necessary application and driver software interfaces required to implement drivers for 1284 compliant peripherals. This committee is developing a standard for sharing the parallel port in a daisy chained or switched (multiplexed) architecture. In addition, this standard will define a data link layer for the 1284 parallel port that will address port contention and data transfer.

Status: This standard has been approved in balloting. There has been a delay due to editing issues. It is currently being prepared for release by the IEEE. This process will take until Q1 2000.

Chair: Larry Stein, Warp Nine Engineering, Larry Stein, Phone 1 (858) 576-4354.

To access ftp in order to download P1284.3 related files, click here. The latest draft is d491.pdf. This is the draft that went to ballot. There are editorial changes to be made prior to its' release. Please do not claim compliance to this draft.

"Standard for Data Delivery and Logical Channels for IEEE Std. 1284 Interfaces"

This committee is developing a Transport Protocol standard that may be used accross an IEEE Std. 1284-1994 parallel port interface, or any other suitable physical interface such as USB or IEEE 1394. This standard will provide a protocol to create and maintain multiple conversations accross a single parallel port link. Think of this as using the 1284 parallel port to communicate with a multifunction device having printer, scanner and fax capabilities. With this protocol multiple applications will have access to the individual functions without the knowledge of the other applications. The starting point for this standard is the Hewlett-Packard standard for Multiple Logical Channels (MLC). It should be noted that the goal of this committee is not to make a standard of the HP MLC specification, but to use the MLC spec as a starting point from which to meet the objectives standard. There is no guarantee, at this time, that the final IEEE standard will be backwards compatible with the current implementation of HP's MLC.

Status: Balloted and Approved in December 1999. Being prepared for release to the IEEE for final approval and publication. Expect final approval by April 2000.

Patent Issues: Hewlett-Packard and Genoa Technology joinly own a patent which is the basis for IEEE 1284.4. They have agreed to offer a license for this patent free of charge. You may obtain a license online by going to "http://www.gentech.com/1284/mlc.htm". Many thanks to Hewlett-Packard and Genoa Technology for making this available.

To access ftp in order to download the 1284.4 draft and other related files, click here. The latest draft is "Draft1284_4v4.pdf". This is the final draft that is being sent to the IEEE. There are editorial changes to be made prior to its' release.

Chair: Larry Stein, President, Warp Nine Engineering, Larry Stein
Phone (858) 576-4354.

For additional information on standards activities please go to the Printer Working Group home page at www.pwg.org.