Norwalk, Connecticut-based Pennant Systems Inc, IBM Corp’s printing systems business, has come out with Print Services Facility/2 to provide Advanced Function Printing support to users on local area networks. PSF/2 enables users to take applications developed for an IBM host printer and print them on workstation printers made by IBM and other companies. The company describes the new product as the latest element in its print anything anywhere strategy. PSF/2 is intended to help users maintain the control, data integrity and resource protection of Advanced Function Printing while moving the actual printing much closer to the end user and acts as a print server to integrate host and workstation printing on a single printer on the network; it eliminates the expense of having each location store its own forms. PSF/2 supports multiple application data streams, including PostScript and ASCII as well as Advanced Function Printing Data Stream, and works on both Ethernet and Token-Ring, supporting IBM mainframe operating systems and OS/2, MS-DOS, Windows and Unix. Release 1.0 of PSF/2, out now, supports all printers that use Hewlett-Packard’s Page Control Language 4 and the Page Printer Data Stream used by the IBM LaserPrinter Models 4019 and 4029 made by Lexmark International Inc. Pennant’s release fails to say so, but it needs a big PS/2 to run – the machine must have 8Mb for a stand-alone configuration with one printer attached, 12Mb on a network with one printer, 2Mb for each additional printer when no other application is running. Disk requirements suggest a 30Mb or 40Mb hard disk is needed and software requirements are OS/2 Extended 1.3 with Communications Manager, Database Manager and Query Manager. It costs $2,900, now; version 1.1, set for fourth quarter extends support to HP PCL5.
