Re: Printing using TCP/IP over Ethernet

Jerry,

-snip-

>SCS (SNA Character String) is an IBM slang term that essentially means
>native pre-formatted AS400 text oriented printer strings.  These are
>typically sent to a specific AS400 printer model (ie:  3812, 5224, 5219,
>etc) with formatting information related to the printer device type as
>defined in the related writer on the AS400.  The information is formatted
>by the AS400 writer as it is sent to the printer.  
>
>Host print transform is used on the AS400 to pre-format AS400 SCS printer
>strings into ASCII strings that are pre-formatted for a specific PC type of
>printer like an HP LaserJet.  This is a cycle intensive job on the AS400
>that I believe is more suited to be offloaded to the Printer or the
>PC/Printer combo.  Why waste AS400 cycles on this job?  The number of ASCII
>printer types available on the AS/400 are limited.

1.  HPT *can* be used on the AS/400, but it is not mandatory.  If you don't use 
it,
     OS/400 will translate your EBCDIC data to ASCII fine without it.  You don't
     need HPT for plain Jane reports (no underlining, etc.)
2.  HPT from SCS to ASCII is a trivial task; not at all cycle intensive.  SCS 
is plain
     old EBCDIC text.   IPDS is more sophisticated, and AFPDS more sophisticated
     still.  Using HPT on those datastreams *is* cycle intensive.
3.  The reason HPT was created was to specifically avoid the scenario where the
     same datastream gets "translated" differently by each client.  Doing the 
transform
     in the AS/400, in one place by one piece of software is a reasonable 
answer to
     that problem.  The corollary to that is that if you move a printer from 
one client
     to another, you need to re-configure the new client.  It's a lot easier to 
configure
     one AS/400 than it is to configure a dozen clients.
4.  The printer types are growing with each release, but if yours is missing, 
you can
     create your own via WSCT support.

Buck Calabro
Commsoft, Albany, NY

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