Taipan 3.01 to OpenRIP Symphony

[kimroyalty]

I'm in need of some advice and am hoping someone can help. In our shop right now, we are using an Agfa Avantra APS-7/AV25 Imagesetter and our rip software is Apogee Taipan 3.01 running on Windows NT. Yesterday, our computer that was running the Taipan went down. Our computer tech is telling us the motherboard is bad. Our (immediate) problem is that we do not have an old computer that we can replace it with. All of our hardware is newer, running XP and/or doesn't have the correct ports to hook up the Avantra (it is using a PCI slot). I've been told that finding a motherboard that will work in that computer is difficult and that it might not even fix the computer.

Now, we do have another system that has OpenRIP Symphony v 5.0 Build 235 on it. It has updates complete up until the past couple of years. It came with a plate/film system (Rip-it Setter 2000), but we have not used it. From reading on OpenRIP's website, it should be able to handle multiple devices, meaning it should run the Avantra, right? That machine does not have the correct serial port to connect the Avantra, so I'm not sure how to proceed from here.

Any advice on what to do?

Thanking you in advance,
Kim

[John Clifford]

To use Symphony with another device requires a key upgrade which may be more than getting the computer replaced (very likely).

Why not just get another computer and install the hard drive, connection card (if there is one) for the avantra, and any dongle, etc.?

I'm sure that would be a lot cheaper than the option for Symphony. We bought a key for a postscript out device (copier) and my recollection is that it was about $3,000 or so. You can buy a pretty nice new computer for that.

[kimroyalty]

Thanks for the reply John. We have gotten another computer and are in the process of installing Windows 2000 Server to try to get this up and running again.

I did get Xante to price a print driver for the Avantra and it was over $3500. So that's not gonna happen right now. Right now, I'm trying to find a print driver for the open Rip symphony to use. It's using a generic one right now, and it's limiting my ability to designate page size, line screen, etc.

[VladCanada]

Taipan 3.01 will not run properly under W2K Server.
You have to know exactly what kind of changes in Win Registry have to be done to run Taipan.