Operational considerations

When a request for a copy operation is sent by the operator or an application program, the first available candidate printer is used for output.

The search order corresponds to the system definition sequence. If a printer is stopped, already printing a message, in exclusive status, or not ready, the next candidate is chosen. If a copy request by an operator finds all printers busy, the keyboard is locked until a printer becomes available. Output messages that require the copy function are not sent if a candidate printer is unavailable. The display workstation receives an error message. A retry attempt is made for the message when the error message is cleared from the screen using the message advance function (PA2 key). The format description for a message can also specify a copy action. MFS uses the DSCA operand in the DEV statement to specify a copy action.