CHAPTER 3: Features and Applications
17
When this facility is activated, a printer attached to a terminal’s auxiliary port is addressed by your
System/3X host (and the LinkUp) as if it were attached by its own distinct line, with full System/3X
printer emulation capabilities. The difference between a printer attached to its own LinkUp
asynchronous port and one sharing a port with a terminal through the terminal’s auxiliary port is the
process of interleaved printing—two devices sharing a single port are operated concurrently and are
instructed by the LinkUp to alternate, with the terminal having priority over the printer.
A choice of two distinct printer operating modes can be defined in the LinkUp Configurator Mode:
• System printing
• Local Copy printing
A System printer is one that accepts print jobs from the System/3X host. A Local Copy printer is one
which accepts a command from you to print the contents of a terminal screen. To invoke a local copy
print request, you must press the key sequence (appropriate for the selected Terminal Module)
corresponding to the extended function of Local Copy Print Request.
NOTE
If the following conditions are not met, a Local Copy Print Request will be ignored and
no error message will display.
The printer must be defined in Configurator Mode as LOC, indicating a Local Copy
printer.
The printer must be associated, through Configurator or Connect Mode. to the terminal
attempting to invoke the Local Copy Print Request function.
The printer must not be currently printing another terminal operator’s screen (as it is
possible to assign the same printer to more than one terminal operator).
If transparent transmission of Escape sequences to ASCII devices is desired, the LinkUp will translate
EBCDIC Hex BB to ASCII Hex IB (Escape) for this purpose when using the US character set.
The LinkUp supports the System/3X host’s printer SIGNAL requests:
• printer intervention required
• printer component available
“Printer intervention required” is sent by the LinkUp when a Printer Workstation goes off-line; for
example, if the power is turned off or paper runs out. When this SIGNAL is received by the host, the
print job is halted. Once the printer is restored to an on-line state, the LinkUp sends “printer
component available” to the host, which causes the host to start the interrupted print job from where it
left off. This procedure assures you that no loss of data occurs.
When a printer is connected to the LinkUp by its own port and its connect mode parameter has been
configured as dedicated, the device ready signal (specified in Configurator Mode) is used by the LinkUp
to determine when to send the SIGNALs. However, when its connect mode parameter has been
configured for automatic answering, the LinkUp is unable to implement this facility. This is because,
when the device ready signal drops, the LinkUp disconnects the device from its coupled session.
