[Coco] Printing to a REAL printer

[Mike Howard]

006 not supposd to e ther. will resemd


On Sun, Mar 23, 2014 at 8:15 PM, Mike Howard <mkhwrd80 at gmail.com> wrote:

> see if this helps Bill...
>
>
> On Sun, Mar 23, 2014 at 9:39 AM, Gene Heskett <gheskett at wdtv.com> wrote:
>
>> On Sunday 23 March 2014 08:54:50 Bill did opine:
>>
>> > Is there ANY way to print to a REAL Coco-compatible printer while using
>> > DriveWire?
>> >
>> > I have a multipack and an RS-232 Pak and a cable (25pin to 4pin DIN)
>> > that can be re-wired.
>> >
>> > What wires would go where?
>> >
>> > Thanks
>>
>> Do you have a printer you can drive with a serial db25 db25 cable from
>> that
>> rs232 pack?
>>
>> Most of those will either have shot pins in the printhead, or might even
>> be
>> daisy wheels.  Any ribbon you can find for a daisy wheel will probably be
>> a
>> one time film ribbon, and so old now the film will shatter on the 1st
>> hammer strike.
>>
>> If you really want the look of the 7x9 character set from a pin pounder,
>> drivewire can make an image that looks quite like an old FX80 printers
>> output when printed on any modern printer.  But you will be using a modern
>> printer, the same one you are using on your (spit) windows box now.  And
>> its still 5 to 20x faster. 5x if an ink squirter, up to 20x if your duty
>> printer is a laser.
>>
>> But the character ambiguities that leaves is a PIMA.  For starters, you
>> can't tell a one from a lowercase ell.  So I wrote some scripts that watch
>> where drivewire puts the text files it gets from the drivewire version of
>> the /p driver, senses when the file has been closed by drivewire, then
>> checks for any housekeeping needed, rename/moves it to a temp spool
>> directory and feeds it to cups, which renders it into the image that a
>> Brother HL2140 needs, and sends that image to the Brother, which is
>> sitting
>> on the top shelf of a computer desk the coco3 is on.  All over USB2.0
>> cabling.
>>
>> So I can "list filename >/p", 5-15 seconds later the Brother warms up (its
>> a cheap B&W laser) and spits it out at about 20 pages a minute in 600 dpi
>> rendered text.  Fastest, easiest to read paper I've ever gotten from an
>> assembly listing on the coco.  Redirecting an assembly listing straight to
>> the printer will wait until the assembly is done of course but it works
>> just as well.
>>
>> Those scripts, 2 of them, can be downloaded from my web page.  I also have
>> a wrapper that starts drivewire AND the background script so its all
>> automatic.  Grab and hack away to make them work for you, or if comfy
>> writing bash scripts that will function as background daemons, looping
>> forever when they are wakened up.  Does the job, relaunches the watcher
>> utility, and sleeps till the watcher returns with the filename to print.
>>
>> Those old pin pounders were so 30 years ago.  Its very hard to make one
>> work, and keep it working.  This uses modern, very pretty print printers
>> that will put marks on 2500 sheets on decent paper for one $70 toner
>> cartridge, whereas the ink squirters have all degenerated into needing at
>> least 6 tanks of each color at $100 a kit to print half a 500 sheet ream.
>> When I realized I was using $600 worth of inks to do a ream of paper a
>> year
>> was when I dropped that card for a color laser, also from Brother and it
>> too Just works(TM).  I've had it about 18 months now, have run 4 or 5
>> reams
>> of paper through it and replaced the starter black toner once.  When I
>> want
>> to do color photo's, HP makes some 32 lb glossy on both sides paper they
>> sell in half ream packages and with a wee bit of tweaking in cups, the
>> photo reproduction is pretty darned exact.
>>
>> Whats not to like?
>>
>> > --
>> > Coco mailing list
>> > Coco at maltedmedia.com
>> > http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco
>>
>>
>> Cheers, Gene
>> --
>> "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
>>  soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
>> -Ed Howdershelt (Author)
>> Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Coco mailing list
>> Coco at maltedmedia.com
>> http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco
>>
>
>