2-2
DocuPrint 900/1300 User’s Guide
System Components: Basic Operation and Control
2
VISTA Console
VISTA is a software translator program which operates on an IBM-
compatible PC. It contains a color monitor, a base unit running the OS/2
operating system, a keyboard, and a 2-button mouse.
The base unit, located inside the computer cabinet, contains a microprocessor
board with on-board memory, a hard drive, floppy drive and other hardware
such as power supply, graphic card, and interface adapters.
VISTA software is preinstalled on the hard disk. It runs on OS/2 revision 4, or
newer operating system. The VISTA console acts as a server and controller
for the DocuPrint 900/1300 printing system. As a controller, VISTA provides
an operator interface where you can submit and run jobs.
VISTA accepts print data, print resources (electronic forms, fonts and
images), and print instructions from the either the Xerox Centralized Printer
(CP) or the IBM AFP environments. Then, VISTA converts them to a virtual
format that is resolution, output device and rotation independent.
VISTA contains the software programming interface VPA. Using the virtual
format files, VPA generates the resource lists and the display lists. The
resource list identifies the resources such as fonts, images and overlays that
are needed for a job. The list also includes the file names and where these
resources are being used (Examples: first page, last page, odd, even, or both).
The display list indicates how a page will be formatted. The list includes the
Job ID, page ID, and print strings. Each print string contains data to identify
the print location (X and Y coordinates), the type of print (text, image, graphic
or overlay), orientation, and the data blocks.
The VISTA console contains the software print driver used to manage the
print engines. The print driver displays resource lists from VPA on the
monitor. The driver and the hardware distribute the data stream (DocuPrint
900/1300 native print commands) to the Raster Image Processor (RIPs)
modules in each of the print engine computers.
Color monitor
Keyboard
OS/2
VISTA
Mouse
VISTA Console
DocuPrint 900/1300 User’s Guide
2-3
The RIP is an image processor that constructs a bit map memory image of the
page to be printed. RIPs in the first print engine computer construct pages for
the back side of the web. RIPs in the second print engine computer construct
pages for the front side of the web. The raster data is then sent to the print
engine for printing.
When not being used as the VISTA console, a service switch, located in the
computer cabinet, allows you to swap monitor, keyboard, and mouse control
to the page tracker computer, as well as the print engine computers.
For information on how to operate the VISTA console, refer to Chapter 5.
VISTA
Generate
display and
Virtual
format
files
Executive
resource
lists
Status &
print control
VPA
Raster
data
AFP
Data
Resources
Instructions
Xerox
JDL
JSL
Print Engine Computers
DocuPrint 900/1300
Native
print commands
