Abstract: A printer system includes a general purpose input/output (GPIO) system that can be driven by any internal printing, encoding or verification event or by external events. Through a unique mapping capability the GPIO system can, through a series of logical functions, generate output events (“actions”) to drive external devices or to control printer internal activities. In one embodiment, the GPIO alternates Master and Slave designations of two printers in the system, so that when one printer is unable to print, the other printer is used to print and continues printing until it can no longer print. At that time, the other printer is used. This alternation continues for equal use between the two printers.

Abstract: A printer system includes a general purpose input/output (GPIO) system that can be driven by any internal printing, encoding or verification event or by external events. Through a unique mapping capability the GPIO system can, through a series of logical functions, generate output events (“actions”) to drive external devices or to control printer internal activities. In one embodiment, the GPIO detects the type of data stream and only the printer capable of using and printing with the data stream prints the job. Examples include an RFID-enabled printer and a bar code printer.