Autoinstall and output-only devices

Most of the benefits of autoinstall apply more to display devices than to printers.

Displays initiate transactions in CICS®; usually, any transaction output is returned to the input terminal, so that neither CICS nor the application needs to know any other NETNAME than that of the display, which identifies itself in the process of logging on.

On the other hand, when output is directed to output-only printers, either CICS or the application must know what NETNAME to use, and this implies that some knowledge of the network is maintained somewhere. The primary and alternate printer names in an individually-defined TCT entry constitute this kind of information, as maintained by CICS. In the case of autoinstalled terminals, corresponding information—if it is required—must be maintained in tables or files, embedded in the application, supplied by z/OS® Communications Server ASLTAB and ASLENT model terminal support (MTS), or supplied dynamically by the user.