On Wednesday, 12/14/2005 at 01:59 EST, David Boyes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Well, obviously I don't speak for IBM, but I'd think there's a case to > be made that the "new" line driver to control/manage channel-attached > printers should be part of the no-charge RSCS license, especially if all > it's doing is issuing the appropriate (and already existing) CP commands > to start and stop channel-attached devices. There's minimal new function > or code to be added, and the existing IP-printers-only RSCS license is > already using all the features that would be necessary here. > > I suppose it would be possible to add this as a user-written mod, but > I'd really like IBM to do this -- IMHO, it would clean up a loose end > that's been sitting for quite a while, and with the announcement of IBM > Director for CMS, I'd think this would be fewer things to implement > there (and document). > > That's one reason why I'm suggesting using RSCS in this way -- it's a > fairly minor bit of coding to gain a fairly major (IMHO) usability > improvement for newbies. Any other way to go about this would be a lot > more work.
David, there is no IBM Director for CMS. What we have is an IBM Director extension (read: priced) that can manipulate virtual machines, but it has nothing to do with CMS, per se. IBM Director is a Linux application that uses CIM to talk to a new Linux-based management access point that runs on z/VM. That management access point (MAP) uses CP commands and the Systems Management API to do the heavy lifting. The MAP is in the free part of Director. I'm not sure what it gains to send CMS output meant for a system printer to be sent to RSCS. If anything, *SPL support (a la PSF) could be added to RSCS to allow it to pick up system queue print files and dispose of them. Then you don't care whether the virtual machine is CMS, Linux, VSE, or whatever. If a virtual machine wants to use LPR to talk to RSCS LPD, that's ok, too. And did I mention adding SAMBA? :-) And I think you could use a "wrapped" NJE link to let RSCS drive a system printer, I'm not sure you need an RSCS channel-attached printer driver. That's what you get when you tag a file for "YOURNODE SYSTEM". Alan Altmark z/VM Development IBM Endicott
