Printing in CICS

Mainframe CICS supports two basic types of printing: 3270 data stream (also known as 3270DS or LU3 printing), and SNA Character Stream (SCS or LU1). 3270DS printing is very similar to 3270 display output, and is supported by the Enterprise Server for .NET CICS. Simply connect a 3270DS / LU3 printer session to the region using your TN3270 client software and send output to it as you would a terminal. See the documentation for your TN3270 client software for more information.

SNA Character Stream is a printer protocol that uses EBCDIC text and control codes. Control codes are one or more bytes long, and begin with a byte value that is not a printable EBCDIC character. Typically, applications generate SCS output using the CICS SEND or SEND TEXT NOEDIT macros, with a combination of normal text and hard-coded control sequences. With Enterprise Server for .NET CICS you can connect an SCS / LU1 printer session using your TN3270 client software and print to it, much as you would on the mainframe, but there are some additional considerations.