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

[Gene Heskett]

On Friday 19 December 2003 01:22, KnudsenMJ at aol.com wrote:
>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.

Load that .gif up into the "gimp", right click on the resultant 
picture, select file, and pull down to print.  Click on print, do 
whatever to the style sheet requestor that brings up and click on 
print.  Voila!  Printed copy.  This of course assumes you have 
gimp-print installed too.  And its all overseen by cups, but it can 
also work with LPRng etc.

Gimp, meaning Graphic Image Manipulating Program, for the less well 
informed, is the Linux equ of photoshop, and its $600 cheaper, as in 
free, comes with most linux flavors.

-- 
Cheers, Gene
AMD K6-III at 500mhz 320M
Athlon1600XP at 1400mhz  512M
99.22% setiathome rank, not too shabby for a WV hillbilly
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by Gene Heskett are:
Copyright 2003 by Maurice Eugene Heskett, all rights reserved.