b) the primary issue is being able to determine the printer status,=
i.e.
did the connection fail because the printer is down or just bus=
y. One
simple solution is to have a printer read on a UDP port dedicat=
ed to
returning a status summary whenever it receives a request on th=
e port.
If
the incoming bytes are limited and have simple options, the pri=
nter
will
never be tied up for long on each transaction and will always b=
e able
to let
a client know if it is alive and whether there are any problems=