Configuring Terminal-Attached Printers

Many of the ASCII terminals used today have an auxiliary serial or parallel port on which to connect a printer device. Connections of this type offer administrators a means of sharing valuable computer resources and increasing user productivity and efficiency by moving the printers as close as possible to the users. This section describes the steps necessary to configure this type of terminal-attached printer in an AIX Version 4 environment.

Hardware Requirements

• IBM 8- or 128-port adapter
• ASCII display (an IBM 3151 display is used for this hardware)
• Serial printer
• EIA 232 serial cabling and gender changers

Prerequisites

1. The 128-port adapter is properly configured and operational.
2. The 3151 display is attached to the 128-port adapter and is operational.
3. The ASCII display is attached to the 128-port adapter and is operational.
4. Printer software for terminal-attached printing is installed.

Setting Up the Hardware

Before adding the printer to your AIX Version 4 system, perform the following steps:

1. Connect the serial printer to the auxiliary port of your terminal using an EIA 232 modem cable (IBM cable D). A null-modem cable is NOT needed on the AUX port of an IBM 3151 terminal.
2. Make note of the following settings for your printer: line speed, word length (or bits-per-character), parity (odd, even, no, space, mark), and the number of stop bits.

Configuring the Auxiliary Port

On the IBM 3151 terminal, perform the following steps:

1. Turn on your terminal simultaneously pressing the Ctrl and Setup keys. The SETUP menu is then displayed on the 3151 screen.
2. Use the Send key to move between menu screens until the KEYBOARD/PRINTER option is displayed. Fill in the PRINTER options with the printer settings you noted previously.
3. Press the Send key until the FUNCTION screen is displayed. Select the Save option and press the Space Bar to save the configuration.

Adding the Print Queue

At this point, you have physically attached the printer to the terminal and configured its auxiliary port with the correct printer settings. The following procedures describe the creation of a local print queue on the host that will access the terminal-attached printer device.

1. Log on as root or as a member of the printq admin group.
2. Use the smit mkpq fast path to access the Add a Print Queue menu.

   Note: The screen content may vary depending on the printer software installed on the host.

3. Select the ascii option, which takes you to the Printer Type screen.
4. Select the appropriate printer manufacturer or Other. For this example, we selected IBM . An additional Printer Type screen is displayed.
5. Select the appropriate printer model. For this example, we selected ibm2380-2 . The TTY Name screen is displayed.
6. Select the tty for the terminal that has your printer attached. For this example, we selected tty0 . The Add a Print Queue screen is then displayed.
7. Enter a descriptive name for the terminal-attached print queue (for example, tty0asc ) in the Name of new PRINT QUEUE to add field, and press the Return key. The print queue will NOT be created.

Testing the Printer

To verify that the printer is functioning properly, issue an lpstat command to list all available print queues on the system. The following output is displayed:

# lpstat
Queue    Dev    Status   Job Files   User   PP %   Blks   Cp  Rnk
-----    ---    ------   ---------   ----   ----   ----   --  ---
4019g1   lp0    READY
4019ps   lp1    READY
tty0asc  tty0   READY

Use the following enq command to send an ASCII file to the printer:

enq -P tty0asc /etc/qconfig

The file should be printed without altering the display or functionality of the terminal.