This chapter discusses how to set up Océ utility files and Barr software options for use with Océ 2050 and 2075 printers and with Océ printers that operate in IBM 3800 Compatibility Mode.
If you are using an Océ 2050 or 2075 printer, review this section for information about setting up the 2050FORM utility and the Barr software.
The Océ 2050 and 2075 printers store resources within the printer. When an Océ 2050 or 2075 printer is directly attached to the mainframe, the printer receives a special FCB record with each job. The FCB triggers the printer to load the stored forms. The first portion of the FCB is identical to the FCB used for IBM 3211 equivalent printers. The rest of the FCB contains an Océ Printer Control Language (PCL) command that instructs the printer to load resources.
When these printers are remotely attached to the mainframe, the FCB records are not provided. Instead, you must use the Océ 2050FORM utility at the PC to create FCB records with the required PCL load resources command. This interactive utility produces a file that you must copy to the Barr forms overlay directory. When a job is ready to print, PRINT370 sends the file to the printer immediately before the print job, which causes the printer to load the required resources.
You can set up the Océ 2050 and 2075 printers to operate either as an Océ 2050 or as an IBM 3211 equivalent printer. If you use PCL commands to load printer-stored resources, select Oce (Siemens) 2050/2075 as the printer type and use the Océ 2050FORM software to generate FCBs that contain PCL commands. If you do not use PCL commands, select IBM 3211 Equivalent as the printer type. For a detailed discussion of the options listed in the following steps, see Chapter 4.
These instructions assume you have completed the Adapter Description according to the instructions in section 4.2.
If you will not use the Océ 2050FORM software, use the default settings for the IBM 3211 Equivalent printer type, as described in section 4.4.
If you will use the Océ 2050FORM software to create FCBs that contain PCL commands, follow these steps to set printer options in the Barr software.
Start at the S/390 Channel Attached Printers screen.
Select a printer. The S/390 Channel Attached Printer Definition screen displays.
Set Enable or Disable device to Enable.
Enter the two-digit Printer address. The value in the software must match the value set on the printer with switches or firmware.
Set Printer type to Oce (Siemens) 2050/2075.
To reach the printer options, start at the S/390 Channel Attached Printer Definition screen.
Select Set printer options. The Printer Options screen displays.
Set Modify advanced printer options to Yes. (The Advanced Printer Options screen displays when you finish with the Printer Options screen.)
Define a Forms overlay directory. This is the directory where you will store the FCBs generated by the 2050FORM software.
Press ENTER.
When you press ENTER from the Printer Options screen, the Advanced Printer Options screen displays.
Make sure that Send 3211 FCB Information is set to No, the default setting.
Press ENTER to preserve your changes, then press ESC until you reach the Installation Description screen.
If you have BARR/SPOOL or BARR/AFP, skip this step. If you have BARR/RJE software, set the forms options. Start at the Installation Description screen.
Select Tuning and Global Options, and then select Printer Control.
On the Tuning and Global Options, Printer Control screen, set Mount forms by to SETUP=PDIR FORMNAME. (You also must enable this option at the mainframe. See Appendix F of your BARR/RJE manual.)
Press ENTER to preserve your changes.
Press ESC to return to the Installation Description screen.
Set up Assign Devices according to the instructions in section 4.5.
Remember to save your changes from the Exit and Save Changes screen.
Use the Océ 2050FORM utility to create FCB records that contain PCL commands.
Copy the resulting FCB files into the forms overlay directory.
These printers can operate in IBM 3800 Compatibility Mode:
Océ 2200-2, 2200-3, 2140-2, 2140-3, 2240-2, and 2240-3
STK 6100
Océ 3800-3 Compatibility Mode printers require resource information (or print instructions) such as fonts, form overlays, FCBs, and mode commands. When the printer is locally attached to the mainframe, these resources are sent from the mainframe to the printer. However, SNA remote printing does not support these resources (the resources cannot be expressed in SNA formats). Because the resources cannot be sent from the mainframe to the PC, when you are printing from the Barr software you must create resource information on the PC.
To create resource files for use with PRINT370, you must obtain the SNPFORM and SNPIMAGE software utilities and user manuals from Océ. SNPIMAGE creates the actual resources, and SNPFORM creates a forms overlay file containing the created resources. The Océ software package includes many standard fonts.
The user manuals from Océ provide detailed instructions for creating resource and overlay files. First, you create a control file containing command statements that define a resource, such as an FCB. Then you use SNPIMAGE to convert the control file into a resource file. Next, you create a file that lists all the resources needed for a job. Finally you use SNPFORM to convert the resource list into an overlay file. Different overlay files can share some of the same resources.
When you enter installation options in the Barr software, you define the directory that contains the newly created overlay files to be the forms overlay directory. You also must specify a command string on the Printer Control Data screen.
When files are sent to the Océ printer, the Barr software forms overlay feature sends the appropriate printer command string and form overlay file to the printer with each job.
This section describes some PRINT370-specific features of Océ printers. For a description of other features, see the SNPFORM and SNPIMAGE user manuals.
The term backspace means to reprint a portion of data to the Océ printer. As pages of a job are sent to the printer, PRINT370 stores them in PC memory until the printed pages are placed in the printer’s stacker. If a printer error occurs, the software can send the data to the printer again from memory. For example, if the Océ printer detects a forms error, the printer clears its page buffer and requests that PRINT370 perform a backspace. Additionally, the software automatically performs a backspace when data gets lost because of a paper line error.
When a backspace occurs on an Océ printer operating in IBM 3800 Compatibility Mode, PRINT370 displays this message on your PC screen:
The sense message displays all 24 sense code bytes to help you determine what caused the backspace.
The TRC feature allows you use multiple fonts on one page. You enable TRC with the SNPFORM utility. When the TRC option is used, the PRINT370 software substitutes the load character set command (select CHARS) for the first character of each print line. You can use the TRC option only with files received in the S/370 format. To use this feature with files in ASCII format, you must first use the Océ SNPSPOOL utility to convert the ASCII files to S/370 format. See the Océ SNPFORM user manual for more information.
Some printer instructions, such as form overlays, are based on the current copy number. For example, if you are printing three copies of a document you might want to use a different form overlay file for each copy. You might want a customer copy, store copy, and corporate copy. You can use the copies option of the Barr print spool feature to print each copy of the document with a different form overlay. As each copy of the document completes, the copy number changes on the Print Spool screen, triggering the next form overlay. This results in collated copies (customer copies in one stack, store copies in another stack, corporate copies in a third stack).
To group copies of each page (all three copies of page 1 in one stack, all three copies of page 2 in another stack), you must print three copies of one page before advancing to the next page. For the grouped method, use the SNPFORM COPYG feature and set the print spool copies value to 1. See the SNPFORM user manual for more information about the COPYG command.
In the Barr software, you need to enter the following:
S/390 printer settings
Printer control data settings
Print spool settings
Memory and forms overlay settings
Follow these steps to set up the Barr software to drive the printer.
Start at the S/390 Channel Attached Printers screen.
Select a printer. The S/390 Channel Attached Printer Definition screen displays.
Set Enable or Disable device to Enable.
Enter the two-digit Printer address. The value in the software must match the value set on the printer with switches or firmware.
Set Printer type to Oce (Siemens) 3800-3 Compatible. This will set some of the printer options outlined below.
To reach the printer options, start at the S/390 Channel Attached Printer Definition screen. You need to verify values for some options and set values for other options.
Select Set printer options.
On the Printer Options screen, verify that Printer performance optimized is set to No, the default setting.
Set Conditional new page at end of file to No.
Set Audible alarm on printer error to the value of your choice. Yes causes the PC to sound an alarm if the printer enters a Not Ready condition.
Set Modify advanced printer options to Yes. (The Advanced Printer Options screen displays when you finish with the Printer Options screen.)
For Forms overlay directory, enter c:\imagelib. This name must match the directory name you specified when you installed SNPFORM and SNPIMAGE. (See the Océ SNPFORM manual for details.) This enables PRINT370 to access the directory where the SNPFORM and SNPIMAGE utilities store their output files. (For more information about setting up a forms overlay directory, see the Devices and Printers chapter of your BARR/RJE manual or your BARR/SPOOL manual.)
For Initialization file, enter c:\imagelib\init. The printer cannot print unless the software loads an initialization file. A file named INIT.CTL comes with the SNPFORM and SNPIMAGE software. Use SNPFORM to generate an overlay file named INIT from the INIT.CTL file. If you modify the INIT.CTL file, you must not include an FCB statement. The operator cannot check forms length on the printing system to prevent an FCB length Load Check error. See the Océ SNPFORM manual for a description of the INIT command.
When you press ENTER from the Printer Options screen, the Advanced Printer Options screen displays.
Verify that Send 3211 FCB to printer is set to No, the default setting.
Press ENTER to preserve your changes. Then press PAUSE until you reach the Installation Description screen.
You must enter several printer commands on the Printer Control Data screen. Enter two command strings: one string to send before the start of each file and one string to send at the end of each file.
For more information about printer control data, see the Devices and Printers chapter of your BARR/RJE manual or your BARR/SPOOL manual.
Set the Printer Control Data – You access printer control data from the S/390 Channel Attached Printer Definition screen.
Select Printer control data.
Enter the start-of-file string starting in the first byte of the table. End the string with two bytes of zeros (00 00).
Enter the end-of-file string immediately after the first string. The end of file string must start with the prefix FF.
The format of the printer control data is described in section 4.4. Each control string must include the S/370 file header followed by one or more records. Each record within a string must contain beginning and ending length codes and a channel command. Optionally, data can follow the command.
Printer Control Data Example – This printer control data contains two strings.
The first string begins in the first byte of line one, which causes the software to send the string to the printer at the start of each file. Three command bytes wrapped in length codes follow the format header. The byte values result in the following actions:
The Clear Printer command (87) causes the printer to empty the page buffer.
The End of Transmission command (07) toggles the copy separator edge marks to the next sequence.
The Skip to Channel 1 Immediate command (8B) causes the printer to advance to the next Channel 1 stop, which usually appears on the first print line of the page.
The second string begins near the end of line one. The first byte is FF, which causes the software to send the string to the printer at the end of each file. Two commands wrapped in length codes follow the format header. The byte values result in the following actions:
At the end of the file, the Mark Form command (17) causes the printer to repeat the last page (data set trailer) and print end-of-job marks across the page perforations.
The Clear Printer command (87) causes the printer to empty the page buffer before continuing.
If you do not need the Mark Form or End of Transmission sequences, omit the corresponding command bytes from the control data and adjust the length bytes accordingly.
For page lengths of 8.5 inches or less, the Mark Form sequence repeats the last page three times. For all other page sizes, the Mark Form sequence repeats the last page five times. If the last page is not a job separator or trailer page, use the alternate control strings shown below.
The first string in this example is the same as the previous example, but the second string contains a Skip to Channel 1 Immediate (8B) as the first command. This sequence produces blank pages that contain job separation marks.
You should use the Barr print spool feature to help with error recovery during printing and to support the Load Copy Number feature with SNPFORM-generated form overlays. For example, if a data error occurs because a required resource was not loaded, PRINT370 will suspend the output destination device. This action allows the Barr software operator to put the file on hold in the print spool until an appropriate resource file is created or the resource problem is resolved. Putting the file on hold allows other jobs to print. If you did not use the print spool, you could not put the file on hold, and the device would remain suspended until the issue was resolved. Meanwhile, other jobs would become backlogged.
For instructions to set up the print spool, see the Print Spool Description chapter of your BARR/RJE manual or your BARR/SPOOL manual. For more information about the SUSPEND destination, see the Assign Devices chapter of your BARR/RJE manual or your BARR/SPOOL manual.
In the Barr software, you must increase the values for Memory allocated for buffers and Extended memory allocated for buffers to work with Océ 3800-3 Compatibility Mode printers.
Start from the Installation Description screen.
Select Tuning and Global Options, and then select Trace and Memory Options.
For each Océ printer you are using in IBM 3800 Compatibility Mode, increase the value for Extended memory allocated for buffers by 1,500 to 2,000 kilobytes.
Increase the value for Memory allocated for buffers to a total of 200,000 to 300,000 bytes to provide necessary overhead for the extended memory buffers.
See the Tuning and Global Options, Trace and Memory Options section of your BARR/RJE manual or your BARR/SPOOL manual for more information about extended memory support.
When you use the Barr forms overlay feature, you might want to specify additional options. Forms overlay options control how forms overlay files are named and loaded and what action the software takes if an overlay file is not found.
See the Tuning and Global Options, Printer Control section of your BARR/RJE manual or your BARR/SPOOL manual for a description of the forms overlay options.
When a Data Check or Load Check error occurs on an Océ 3800-3 Compatibility Mode printer, the printer halts and cannot continue without operator intervention. To alert you to the problem, the Status Line of the Operation screen and the printer Status on the Print Spool screen display the word HALTED for the affected printer. The operator must determine the cause of the error and take action to correct it.
For example, if a Load Check occurs because the wrong paper is loaded in the printer the operator has two choices:
Correct the problem immediately – Load the appropriate paper. Then from the Operation screen, select Advanced, PRINT370, PRxx, where PRxx is the printer name. Select Continue on the Printer Commands menu. (The Continue option displays only when the printer status is HALTED.)
Correct the problem later – Put the file on hold, and then reset the printer driver by selecting Reset PRxx from the Printer Commands menu. (You must put the file on hold before you select Reset PRxx, or the output will be lost.) The next job begins to print.
For more information about channel printer status messages that display on the Status Line and about the Printer Commands menu, see Chapter 8.