Symbolics/UNIX LPD glitch?

[cstacy@ai.mit.edu (Christopher C. Stacy)]

It sounds like there is a service protocol deficiency regarding the
assignment of unique IDs on the spooler.  If it was turning out to be a
real problem alot of the time, it could be fixed by hacking Unix to offer a
"unique-id service", and making Genera's printer client take advantage of it.

The following ought to be trivial to implement. Unix could offer a service
called "unique-id" or something.  You connect up with TCP or UDP, possibly
mentioning the type of ID you were interested in with a coded designator.
The server generates and returns a unique ID, a current timestamp, and an
expiration time.  Note that this server could be developed by anybody, and
would not be required; this proposal is just an extension.

The Genera client could look to see if the server offerred the unique-id
service, and if it did, invoke it to get the ID for the print job.
If the unique-id service was not available, the client would just generate
them as it does now.  This should also be trivial to develop.
I guess Symbolics would have to implement this, part, unless you are
interested in running a locally-patched Genera.

Probably a UNIQUE-ID service would be useful for lots of other things, too.
However, if you want to just solve the stated problem, I would caution
against spending time trying to figure out how to make the idea more
general (with multiple cooperating servers or other standard complicated
jazz that could be dreamed up.)

Since this all seems just a little off the primary subject, you might
possibly consider directing any replies just to me, so as not to clutter SLUG.
I suppose I could maybe even be convinced to hack this up for you.