I-Data 5250 ALLY - Manual (Page 8)

AGILE 5250 ALLY User’s Guide and Reference Page viii
About the AGILE 5250 ALLY
The AGILE 5250 ALLY is a powerful, easy-to-use, intelligent protocol
converter/printer interface controller that enables an industry-standard,
parallel, ASCII or EBCDIC printer to be attached to an IBM AS/400 or a
System 34, 36 or 38. The alternate host port allows the attached printer to
be shared with a PC, PC LAN, file server, print sharing device, protocol
converter or another parallel-attached alternate host input device.
The 5250 ALLY is designed to be fast and to have maximum flexibility.
One twinax address (also referred to as a session or logical unit) is
supported. It is configurable to emulate an IBM 3812 (SCS mode), 4214,
5219, 5224, 5225 or 5256 printer. The 5250 ALLY automatically validates
the port address, thus avoiding address conflicts.
5219 support includes IBM Office/400 and DisplayWrite 36 support,
including multi-column justification, GFIDs with multiple fonts per page,
superscripting, subscripting, bolding, overstriking, backspacing,
underlining, pitch control, sheetfeeder control, page orientation and page
format.
Connectivity is provided by a twinax port, one parallel input port and one
Centronics parallel output port. The parallel input port is used for input
from an alternate host. The parallel output port is dedicated to output.
The twinax address and the alternate host input can be configured to print
to the attached printer, with appropriate character translation provided by
the 5250 ALLY. It translates IBM twinax output to parallel output, and it
translates high-level formatting information to a format appropriate for the
attached printer (i.e., it converts IBM printer control codes to control codes
used by other printers).
The operating software and configuration data are stored in flash
EEPROM memory, facilitating new code upgrades and support for custom
applications. The unit can be configured with the twinax data stream or
from the alternate host. Many configuration settings also can be changed
from the 5250 ALLY front panel.
Users with Xerox 275s can replace those units without changing their host
software. The 5250 ALLY also provides extensive special support for
Xerox printers in both XDPM (XES/UDK/2700) and XPPM modes,
including the ability to provide AS/400 or System/3X connectivity to a
Xerox 4235 in XDPM or XPPM modes. The 5250 ALLY allows Xerox
4235 users to download fonts and forms in XPPM and XDPM modes
through the printer’s parallel port.