Lukas Beeler’s IT Blog

HPT (Host Print Transform) allows the System i to print to non-IPDS printers. However, documentation from IBMs side is rather sparse or hard to find. I usually remember the phrase “support for various ascii printers”, and search for it. Currently, it gets us to IBM’s HPT Page.

HPT works with almost all printers that support PCL/PS. No, your cheap SOHO host-based network printers won’t work. But if you have an older Printer without network attachment, you can even use HPT together with iSeries Access (see the checkmark “Let host handle conversion to ASCII” in the connection setup screen).

If you’re using a network printer, remember to set the SYSDRVPGM option. This allows even advanced job control to work flawlessly from i5/OS.

This is from a post i made on Midrange-L a while back. It still contains valuable info, so i’m posting it here.

• The Documentation sucks - there is none. You can use some documentation directly from Neoware to figure out rather important things like changing the keyboard layout from US English to whatever locale you’re using.
• The thin console is silver. Not black. It features a rather prominent Neoware logo.
• It’s supplied with a black IBM USB Keyboard without the System i Keyboard Layout. There’s no documentation on how special access keys are mapped. This keyboard is plugged into the front of the Unit.
• It’s supplied with the cheapest mouse i’ve ever seen, which is plugged into a PS/2 slot on the back of the unit. It’s not an IBM mouse, it is supplied by Neoware, further enhancing the consistency of this product.
• There’s no documentation on how to change the ip address of the thin console. It connects automatically to the default ASMI-IP Adresses.
• No Documentation on where to get new software for the thin console, or how to install it
• No remote access with the thin console. You can’t access it remotely.
• You can’t turn off the thin console while your system is running (Generates SRC B17CE433, calls IBM, lights attention light). I’ve had a PMR open because of this, and got “works as designed” back. This message may also pop up if you disconnect your HMC from the machine - something which is a lot more problematic than disconnecting a thin console.
• LIC IPL Status is not displayed on the thin console. As far as i know, the Twinax console is still the only one which can do that.
• When ordering an Express i520 with twinax console: you get an IOP and a twinax card for free (about 4000-5000CHF value), when ordering with a thin console, you get the thin console for free (about 1000CHF value)