Printer Accessories User Manual

Page 17-3ALTERNATE HOST CONSIDERATIONS
Alternate Host Translation
The data stream from the alternate host is not sent directly through the
ULTRA to the attached printer. Rather, all characters must first pass
through the appropriate translate table, even if the printer uses the same data
format as the alternate host.
If both the printer and the alternate host use the ASCII character set, the
data is passed through Translate Table #3  ASCII to ASCII. If using a
Xerox printer in EBCDIC mode, the data will be converted with Translate
Table #6  ASCII to EBCDIC. For more information, refer to Section 7 
Translate Tables.
Although these tables may be edited by the user, AGILE advises against
doing so, particularly because these tables are also used to generate
configuration reports, and changing them may corrupt output to the printer.
Other Considerations
The connection between the alternate host and the ULTRA may be tested
by sending a print screen job to the printer. Users with problems in printing
properly formatted documents from the alternate host may print a buffer
dump of the data being sent from the alternate host to the printer. Refer to
Section 4  Troubleshooting for details on printing these reports.
If using a serial alternate host that is configured to use CTS (Clear to Send)
flow control  also known as hardware handshaking, Option #41 must
be set to Yes (the default setting). If the serial alternate host uses XON/
XOFF (software) handshaking, set this option to No. For parallel
interfacing, this option can be ignored. Make the appropriate choice,
referring for instructions to Section 8  Front Panel Configuration or
Section 9  Coax Host Configuration.
The only other configuration options that will affect printed output from the
alternate host are Option #10  Output in ASCII or EBCDIC and Option
#25  Centronics or Dataproducts Parallel, but these are configured to
conform to the printer and its interface and are not specific to the alternate
host. Otherwise, data is sent from the alternate host to the printer without
any transformation, so the alternate host software requirements are the same
as they would be if the alternate host were attached directly to the printer.
As such, all page formatting (e.g., column width, line spacing, form feeds,
etc.) must be handled by the alternate host software application.