Introducing Advanced Function Presentation

To understand what Print Services Facility™ (PSF) for z/OS® can do for you, you must first understand the relationship between Advanced Function Presentation (AFP) and PSF.

AFP is an architected system of hardware and software for creating, formatting, viewing, retrieving, printing, and distributing information about a wide variety of printer and display devices. First introduced in 1984 to support the IBM® 3800 Model 3 high-speed printer, AFP now supports improved printing technology and functions.

The AFP architecture governs the creation and control of data types (such as text, font, image, graphics, bar code, fax, color, audio, and multimedia) so that computer output is more readable and attractive. AFP’s specific interchange architecture, called Mixed Object Document Content Architecture (MO:DCA), makes information interchange possible among different operating systems that use different protocols. These operating systems include:

• AIX®
• IBM i
• Linux
• VM
• VSE
• Windows
• z/OS