The work station support APIs allow you to control the type-ahead characteristics of a work station and to retrieve information about the last output operation to the requester device for the specified interactive job.

Type-ahead, also called keyboard buffering, lets the user type data faster than it can be sent to the system. Attention key buffering determines how to process the action of pressing an Attention key. If attention key buffering is on, the Attention key is treated as any other key. If attention key buffering is not on, pressing the Attention key results in sending the information to the system even when other work station input is inhibited.

The work station support APIs and their functions are:

• Query Keyboard Buffering (QWSQRYWS) API determines the current type-ahead and attention key buffering settings.
• Retrieve Output Information (QWSRTVOI) API gives the caller information on the last attempted output operation to the requester device for the specified job.
• Set Keyboard Buffering (QWSSETWS) API controls the use of the type-ahead and attention key buffering functions.
• Suspend or Restore Display File (QWSSPRST) API gives the caller the ability to either suspend the active display file on the requester device or restore a suspended file to the requester device.

You can enter the parameters for the QWSQRYWS and QWSSETWS APIs in mixed case. The APIs convert them to uppercase. For all other APIs, you must enter all parameters in uppercase.

The keyboard buffering data stream is supported by the following controllers:

ASCII Work Station Input/Output Processor

Twinaxial Work Station Input/Output Processor

5394 Remote Control Unit

5494 Control Unit

IBM Personal Computer Systems attached via Client Access or work station emulation (WSE) do not support the type-ahead data stream. Keyboard buffering for these devices is controlled through the emulation programs.