Re: Modify EBCDIC>ASCII xlate ta

Thanks Scott!  I thought it might be this simple, but the Workstation
Customization Programming manual was vague about this; couldn't tell if I'd
have to translate all 256 bytes or what, and then, what to do with the other
options.  I just wanted to change one frickin character, fer cryin' out loud.
From the IBM AS/400 Printing V redbook: "Plan anywhere from one to five days
to complete a successful ASCII printer customization."  Don't think so!

What about the code pages?  How did you decide on 437?  (FWIW, this printer
will used in the United States.)  Are you also printing to the datamax via
tcp/ip?

I think you were being sarcastic when you commented on the IDEA 5250
workstation doing the translation.  But just in case, I would not recommend
this as an "easy" solution for anybody for a host of reasons.  Not that this
tinkering with the WSCST has been easy so far, but it should solve a lot of
problems for us moving forward.  As you might imagine, the dumb terminals with
the label printers attached are used in a warehouse environment by personnel
not trained to respond to Windoze problems.

Looking at this a little more closely...

>     :ASCIICTL
>       ASCII ='40'X
>       DATA ='02'X.

Is this translating an ASCII x'40' to x'02'?  If so, ASCII x'40' on my PC
looks like the '(' character (the left parenthesis character).  Shouldn't this
be the ASCII value for '@'?  Oops, I see my mistake there, I was typing
<Alt>-4-0 for x'40' when I should've typed <Alt>-6-4, i.e., decimal 64 =
hexadecimal 40.

Dan Bale
IT - AS/400
Handleman Company
248-362-4400  Ext. 4952

-------------------------- Original Message --------------------------

Hi Dan...

On Tue, 23 Jan 2001 D.BALE@handleman.com wrote:

> I've created a remote out queue to use an IP-addressable (ASCII) label
 printer
> on our network.  The printer requires an ASCII hex code '02' as a prefix to
> several "system-level" commands.

We have several Datamax label printers that use this x'02' as a prefix to
commands... there are also x'01' prefixes, too...

> Our experience with this type of label printer thus far has been to attach
 it
> to a 5250 dumb terminal via the serial port.  The IDEA display station
 allows
> custom translation and it is here that we translate an '@' character (EBCDIC
> x'7C') to an ASCII x'02' character.

Interesting idea... I could probably use that :)

> Is a workstation customizing object the way to go here?  Is there an
 existing
> EBCDIC-to-ASCII *WSCST object that I can copy to a new one and modify the
 one
> byte?

Just set one up and tell it that '@' is an ASCII control sequence...
Then tell it that the sequence is x'02'

Like this:

:WSCST DEVCLASS=TRANSFORM.

     :TRNSFRMTBL.
     :SPACE
       DATA ='20'X.
     :CARRTN
       DATA ='0D'X.
     :LINEFEED
       DATA ='0A'X.
     :ASCCPINFO.
     :CODEPAGE
       CODEPAGE = 437
       DATA =''X.
     :ASCIICTL
       ASCII ='40'X
       DATA ='02'X.
     :EASCCPINFO.
:EWSCST.

If you typed that into source member LABEL in LIB/QTXTSRC, then you'd
compile it with:

CRTWSCST WSCST(MYLIB/LABEL) SRCFILE(LIB/QTXTSRC)

then specify MYLIB/LABEL as the workstation customizing object.
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