[Coco] M.E.S.S. Printing

[KnudsenMJ at aol.com]

In a message dated 12/18/03 1:18:25 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
brianhostetler at purdue.edu writes:

> I was just wondering if anyone has figured out how to print graphics in
>  MESS.  I have figured out how to print to a file, which works fine for
>  text documents.  I want to print several Cocomax drawings on my Inkjet
>  printer under Windows XP.

It would be great if someone could dig up or write, then post, an 
understandable description of one of the simpler Windows file formats, such as .BMP 
(bitmap) or good old GIF.  Given that info, we could write conversion routines from 
any known Coco graphics format into BMP or GIF, which any Windows machine's 
printer drivers know how to print.

Trying to figure out how to do graphics on your own printer as a wasted 
effort, similar to trying to keep up with video cards, and modern printers are 
driven by the main CPU and use proprietary interfaces.

That's why you'll have to pry my dead fingers (and still be strong enough to 
pick it up) to get my HP DeskJet 500 away from me.   Everything documented.  
It will end up on my Linux box one of these days.  Yes, I've even driven it 
directly from a Linux program.

Roger Taylor sent me some GIF docs (thanks again), but some key info at the 
bit level is missing.    GIF also uses complex compression schemes, so probably 
BMP is our best hope.  I've done a little bit of Hex dumping of simple BMPs, 
but haven't gotten far with reverse engineering them yet.  --Mike K.