[Coco] DriveWire printing options

[Aaron Wolfe]

It seems like an Epson compatible filter would be the most universal.

I think I've decided to limit the DriveWire functionality to dumping
the bytes into a file.  This keeps DW clean and smaller.

However, this file could then be fed to a filter that creates the
image/pdf/etc output.  In this way, the filter would not be limited to
use with DriveWire and anyone could write a new filter (essentially
supporting a new printer) using any tools they prefer.  I think this
is a better way to go.

-Aaron


On Fri, Dec 25, 2009 at 10:47 AM, Joel Ewy <jcewy at swbell.net> wrote:
> Aaron Wolfe wrote:
>>
>> 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...
>>
>>
>
> Most of my printing on the CoCo was from Telewriter 64 / 128 and VED /
> VPRINT (which used similar formatting codes to Telewriter) on the DMP-105
> and later the Star NX-1000 Rainbow.  But since that is all text, it would be
> suitable to just create a text file from it on the server PC.  And it's not
> so important to be able to print it directly anyway, since the original text
> file can simply be transferred to the PC and read and printed there.
>
> I did some printing from CoCo Max and CoCo Max 3.  It would be neat to be
> able to print some of that kind of stuff.
>
> Back in the day it was not uncommon for programs to come with instructions
> for rolling your own printer driver, or adapting a sample driver to your
> printer.  And I seem to remember that Epson-compatibility was a de-facto
> near-standard.  Maybe some kind of generic printer facility could be
> concocted that uses Epson-type codes -- not necessarily reflective of an
> exact historic printer model, but providing the type of functionality that
> could easily be adapted to work with the old applications.
>
> JCE
>
>> 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
>>
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>>
>
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