[Coco] DriveWire printing options

[Aaron Wolfe]

I reviewed the documentation for the DMP132.  Its fairly complex, but doable.
I think I'll need to emulate just one printer or (maybe) printer
family, hopefully there is one that will provide a good amount of
functionality to a good number of applications.



On Fri, Dec 25, 2009 at 2:40 AM, Bob Devries <devries.bob at gmail.com> wrote:
> Aaron,
>
> I guess you could just choose one which was common, and emulate that.
> Something like the Tandy DMP133 for instance. I'd guess that most
> applications would provide support for that. Others may have
> different/better suggestions.
>
> I personally used a Tandy DMP202 for many years. That was a 24 pin dot
> matrix printer.
>
> Regards, Bob Devries
>
> --
> Besides a mathematical inclination, an exceptionally good mastery of one's
> native tongue is the most vital asset of a competent programmer.
>
> Edsger W.Dijkstra, 18 June 1975
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Aaron Wolfe" <aawolfe at gmail.com>
> To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" <coco at maltedmedia.com>
> Sent: Friday, December 25, 2009 6:19 PM
> Subject: Re: [Coco] DriveWire printing options
>
>
> On Fri, Dec 25, 2009 at 2:02 AM, Bob Devries <devries.bob at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Aaron, you asked:
>>
>>> Is there one printer model that would cover a majority of applications?
>>
>> Sadly, even the Tandy printers used different codes for their various
>> printing modes. I wonder if the graphics printing could be implemented as
>> a
>> separate module, which can be replaced with the correct type for the
>> printer
>> in use, along the lines of a DLL?
>>
>
> Java is able to do dynamic class loading, but that might be pushing
> the limits of where we want to go in terms of complexity.   It is a
> possibility.
>
> For simple things like bold, italics, font selection, basically text
> manipulation I think a simple translation table would do (byte pattern
> X = bold, byte pattern Y = doublestrike, etc).   I'll need to
> understand more about how graphics are done before I can guess what
> would be required there.
>
> Maybe a better place to start would be what applications are most
> important to support?  If there is a printer with good functionality
> that is shared amongst the most desired apps, I could start working on
> that and see where it leads.  Like I mentioned, I never got into
> printing things so I don't have a good idea of what would be the most
> popular printing tasks.
> You mentioned printing source code.. is this just dumping ascii text
> to the printer, or is there a tool you use that "pretty prints" the
> code?
>
>
>> Regards, Bob Devries
>>
>> --
>> Besides a mathematical inclination, an exceptionally good mastery of one's
>> native tongue is the most vital asset of a competent programmer.
>>
>> Edsger W.Dijkstra, 18 June 1975
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Aaron Wolfe" <aawolfe at gmail.com>
>> To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" <coco at maltedmedia.com>
>> Sent: Friday, December 25, 2009 5:20 PM
>> Subject: Re: [Coco] DriveWire printing options
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Dec 25, 2009 at 12:59 AM, Bob Devries <devries.bob at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi Aaron,
>>>
>>> I'm sure there are some of us who still like to do development work on
>>> the
>>> real thing, and often being able to list all or part of a source file is
>>> useful.
>>>
>>> How likely is it to be able to catch the large range of Tandy printers
>>> that
>>> were used, and convert their output (usually in various graphics modes)
>>> to
>>> a
>>> raster image for printing on a Windows printer, or to a PDF or other
>>> graphics file such as jpeg? If this was a possibility then various
>>> programmes which produce graphics output could be used.
>>>
>>
>> Java has good support for rendering 2D graphics, and once you have an
>> image, its simple to output it to a jpeg, a PDF, send it to a local
>> printer, etc. The real trick would be turning the bytes sent to the
>> printer port into a 2D graphic :)
>>
>> Is there one printer model that would cover a majority of
>> applications? I could implement things in a modular style so that
>> additional bytes -> image converters could be plugged in its place
>> easily enough if people wanted additional printers, but focusing on
>> one to start at least would be more practical.
>>
>> -Aaron
>>
>>
>>
>>> Regards, Bob Devries
>>> Goulburn, NSW, Australia
>>>
>>> --
>>> Besides a mathematical inclination, an exceptionally good mastery of
>>> one's
>>> native tongue is the most vital asset of a competent programmer.
>>>
>>> Edsger W.Dijkstra, 18 June 1975
>>>
>>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Aaron Wolfe" <aawolfe at gmail.com>
>>> To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" <coco at maltedmedia.com>
>>> Sent: Friday, December 25, 2009 4:50 PM
>>> Subject: [Coco] DriveWire printing options
>>>
>>>
>>>> Hi guys,
>>>>
>>>> First off, Merry Christmas to everyone :)
>>>>
>>>> As we are finishing up a feature set for the first release of the Java
>>>> based DriveWire server, I realize that I haven't put in anything for
>>>> printing support yet. I don't use printers much myself, never really
>>>> had much need.
>>>>
>>>> What (if anything) would be useful to people in the printing
>>>> department? Options range from dumping the bytes to a text file, to
>>>> displaying them on a web page, to even emulating some sort of Coco
>>>> printer and rendering the output in a PDF, etc...
>>>>
>>>> Anybody still print with their Coco? If there's something that would
>>>> be useful, let me know and I'll try to implement it.
>>>>
>>>> -Aaron
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Coco mailing list
>>>> Coco at maltedmedia.com
>>>> http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco
>>>
>>>
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