How It Works - Axis HP MIO User Manual

HP MIO
Section 1: Introduction

How It Works

An IBM system communicates with printers using a high-speed, bi-
directional protocol very different from the PC standard parallel and
serial connections.
In the AXIS HP MIO, the conversion of IBM system data to HP
printer data is carried out in three steps as illustrated in the picture
below:
The AXIS HP MIO IBM System to HP Printer Data Conversion
The IBM System Communication block extracts the print data, page
formatting commands, and font selection commands from the IBM
data stream.
The Conversion to PCL block converts the data into PCL, which is the
format used by HP printers.
The Printer Driver block passes the data on to the printer using the
internal MIO (Modular Input/Output) interface.
The Printer Driver also accepts PCL data from a local PC or a LAN
print server (such as the AXIS NPS 560) using the AXIS HP MIO
parallel port. In this way, you can share the printer between two
different environments. The PC/LAN print data is not converted or
otherwise modified by the AXIS HP MIO board.
8 AXIS HP MIO User's Manual