Agilent Technologies 6287 Introduction, General Information, IBM Port, Alternate Host Feature

SECTION 1

INTRODUCTION

General Information

The AGILE 6287 ULTRA is a protocol converter that allows an industry- standard parallel or serial, ASCII or EBCDIC printer to be attached to an IBM 3270-type mainframe controller. It is a self-contained unit with a printed circuit board, a power supply and an operator control panel.

The coax port allows a standard IBM RG62 A/U cable to connect to an IBM 3174 or 3274 establishment controller (EC) with a category A device adapter, a 3276 terminal/controller unit, or an IBM CPU with a Display Printer Adapter (DPA).

By using the ULTRA, a non-IBM impact or laser printer can replace an IBM 3287 or 3289 printer. Popular printers from Xerox, Hewlett-Packard, Lexmark and others are supported and appear to the host as IBM printers.

The ULTRA also allows an alternate host to share the attached printer. The ULTRA may also be attached to a plotter, rasterizer, bar code printer or another output device that supports parallel or serial interfacing, although this manual will refer to the attached device as a printer.

Supported Printer Interfaces and Character Sets

The ULTRA supports the following printer interfaces and character sets:

•DB-25 Centronics Parallel (IBM PC compatible)

•DB-25 Dataproducts Parallel

•DB-25 Serial (to 19.2K baud)

•ASCII, EBCDIC or APL character sets

IBM Port

The ULTRA connects directly to the IBM establishment controller, or equivalent CPU with a Display Printer Adapter, through an IBM standard coaxial cable.

Alternate Host Feature

The ULTRA has been designed to support an alternate host device, such as a DEC VAX, Burroughs, PC, etc. This feature allows the mainframe and the alternate host to share a printer without the necessity of an A/B switch.