PSF/AIX: PostScript to PSF/MVS printers?
ITEM: RTA000035780
QUESTION:
Customer is considering PSF/AIX for his high volume Postscript reports.
In his environment, he would have the PSF/AIX machine attached to an
Ethernet LAN to receive the Postscript, and attached via Token-ring to
the his ES/9000 host for moving the AFPDS file to MVS/JES/PSF for
printing on a 3900. I have the following questions:
1) Since I am transforming Postscript, am I required to have the Core
Interchange Fonts? If so, given that the actual AFPDS will be
printed by PSF/MVS, must the Core Interchange Fonts be on the
PSF/AIX machine? I'm thinking that, if they are required, it is
sufficient to have the fonts at PSF/MVS only.
2) How will additional memory (RAM) help the Postscript transform
process? I know that 64 MB RAM is recommended but I see that these
RS/6000's can have lots more RAM than that.
3) Is it possible to substitute an OEM tape drive for the one
recommended for loading PSF/AIX?
4) I think I would use a TCP/IP LPR command to get the Postscript
file from a workstation to the PSF/AIX machine. If so, does TCP/IP
code have to be resident at the PSF/AIX machine?.
5) If I am going to send the AFPDS data from PSF/AIX to PSF/MVS, how
would I accomplish this?
Thanks.
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A:
R1) The Type 1 outlines of the Core Interchange Fonts (CIF) and IBM
Coordinated Fonts are installed automatically when you select the
PostScript (psf.ps) option of PSF/AIX. A default font mapping file,
ibmcore.fon, is also installed.
Having said that, of these fonts, at a minimum you need the Courier
font, because it is required in at least one of the font mapping files.
You would not need the other fonts unless your PostScript file
calls for them.
On the other hand, if your PostScript file contains fonts other than the
fonts provided, you will have to add their Type 1 outlines to the system,
create a new font mapping file, and tell PSF/AIX about it. (This proces s
is documented in the PSF/AIX Print Administration book.)
You do not need to have them at the MVS host at all, because the
output of the PSF/AIX PostScript transform is image. (It will help to
have AFIG and DPE at the printer, if possible. The PostScript transform
can create IM1 as well as compressed image, though.)
R2): According to the PSF/6000 V1.1 performance tests, they found no
measurable benefit of more than 64MB of RAM for the PostScript transform,
at least for the test cases documented in the Performance Flash.
| However, for later levels of PSF/6000 and PSF/AIX, a different RIP
| is used, and more memory is beneficial; I'd recommend at least 128MB
| for the PostScript and PCL transforms. The faster the CPU the better
| too.
R3): Any tape drive that a RISC System/6000 can access should be
okay. PSF/AIX has no IBM-specific requirements; we only list the IBM
tape drives in the announcement letter though.
R4&5): Okay, so you have a workstation, a PSF/AIX server, and an
MVS host with PSF/MVS and a channel-attached printer. Let's talk
about getting the transformed file from the PSF/AIX server to the host
first.
Because the AFPDS generated by the PostScript transform is not blocked
as the host system requires, you can't send the output of the transform
straight to the host spool for printing (for example, using the TCP/IP
LPR commands from AIX to MVS TCP/IP). You have to upload the output
of the PostScript transform to a file on the host and reblock it.
| For PSF/MVS 2.2 customers, there is an optional AFP Upload feature
| (see announcement letter 296-207) that works with code in PSF/AIX
| 2.1 to automate the upload, reblocking and job submission process.
| AFP Upload can be used over either SNA LU6.2 or TCP/IP (sockets).
| For PSF/VM customers, there's no automated process, but you could FTP
| the file up to the host in binary mode and then use the AFRREBLK exec
| that is provided with PSF/AIX 2.1 to reblock the AFP data stream into
a host-acceptable format. Then you can print the job as usual (IEBGENER,
for example.) One of our customers has done this very thing; they even
wrote their own reblock program in COBOL.
Okay, now we've talked about getting the transformed file up to
the host and ruled out using the standard AIX LPR command to send the
file directly to the host PSF.
Now, let's talk about getting the PS file transformed down in the
AIX/UNIX world.
Q): Is the client workstation an AIX box? If so, you can run the
PostScript transform on the AIX client workstation as an alternative
to running it on the PSF/AIX server. You could install only the psf.ps
component of PSF/AIX on the AIX client, run the transform at the client ,
save the output of the transform in a file, FTP the file up to the host,
reblock and print, not even going to or through the PSF/AIX server.
Or, with TCP/IP on both systems, you could NFS-mount the file system
containing the ps2afp command on the server to the client. Or you
could FTP the PS file from the client to the server and issue the
transform command at the server and save the output to file.
Now, if the client is not an AIX workstation, you could still FTP
the file over to the PSF/AIX server, run the transform there, save
the output, FTP to host, etc.... Or you could NFS-mount your PS file
on the client to the PSF/6000 server and issue the transform command at
the server. Or LPR -- lots of options.
| Or if the client is a Windows workstation, you could use the AFP
| Driver for Windows to create AFPDS on the PC, then send that through
| the AFP Upload queue to PSF/MVS for printing. The advantage to this
| approach is that AFPDS is much more efficient for PSF/AIX to process
| than PostScript -- fewer CPU cycles required.
| If you're considering using AFP Upload, please search ViewBlue for
| other libraried items on PSF/6000 or PSF/AIX and AFP Upload,
| performance and PostScript. There are some things you need to be
| aware of.
I hope that helps answer your questions.
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| Updated 15 May 1998
This item was created from library item Q645937 CMQHR
S e a r c h - k e y w o r d s:
AFP CMQHR PRINT PSF PSF6000 6000 psf/aix psf/6000 upload ps2afp
postscript transform performance afrreblk lpr mvs psf/mvs afp
pcl pcl2afp duvsreb infoprint
WWQA: ITEM: RTA000035780 ITEM: RTA000035780
Dated: 10/1998 Category: XPSF6000
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