#Printer Driver Info
13 messages in this thread
Is there any good book or files to write a printer driver for the Amiga under
1.3 (or higher).
This place has several Tektronix printers (one in my desk) that are weird and
need a special driver. I wrote the one that drives the program we sell.
For those who are going to suggest the generic printer driver program, please
don't. I wish I could used one of those things but this printer does not
communicate in the typical 8 bit mode it uses a weird 2+6 bit communication
mode so those programs are out. In addition, the printer has no TTY
capability. That is it can not print ASCII text. Why? It has no character
definitions inside. This monster is a giant dot spitter.
And can print 12×18 using the solid ink (hey, it melts it before it spits it
out). And can print in any media (even paper towels, and YES I TRIED THAT
ALREADY). Which is why I want an Amiga driver. The program I work for is for
yellow pages and it is very hard to do anything nice on it. And I don't feel
like creating a Windows or OS/2 driver (cause I think it would be easier to do
in the Amiga).
Please help.
Eduard
Volt Information Sciences
Eduard,
The printer driver specific stuff in the Devices volume of the ROM Kernel
Library handbooks. Try some of the mail order places like Safe Harbor and
Amiga Warehouse.
DJ
On AP from Queens, the thrill and excitement of the Big Apple
Where a little paranoia is always a healthy attitude …
Eulogio,
Thanks, I got it know is a question of figuring things out. It seem simple
if I don't need to do ASCII printing. Otherwise it will be a while.
Eduard
VIS
Happy coding! Don't forget to DOCUMENT!
DJ
On AP from Queens, the thrill and excitement of the Big Apple
Where a little paranoia is always a healthy attitude …
It will be fun (when I'm done)
Eduard
VIS
A couple of years ago there was a printer driver generator program
here…and maybe it won't work for your Tektronix. This program allowed
you to input all the codes your printer used, then generated an Amiga
driver. Sorry I can't remember the name…used to have it, and deleted
it.
You might want to drop a note to Wolf Faust, probably the best printer
driver writer around. Try him at 100116,1070. He's in Germany and writes
the best commercial drivers for the Amiga.
Gary
on AutoPilot from Charlotte, NC
Thanks Gary, but I don't think so. I have it. I think is the
PRTGENsomekindofnumber and it assumes that the
1- The printer has multiple 8 bit wide commands (which 99% of the printer do)
but this printer uses 6 bit wide commands (do not ask me I did not make the
thing)
2- It can print ASCII character (this thing can;t print a thing without a
driver)
Wolf Faust already wrote something to me, plus I have now the ROM Kernel Manual
already suggested earlier. I hope I can do this. I will keep everyone posted.
Thanx
Eduard
VIS
Well, there are various sources of Amiga drivers available in the Rom
Kernal Manual (ask in your bookstore) or Companion (Fish disk 344 includes
the sources – warning… all sample source code I have seen so far
includes several bugs!).
Regarding the Tektronix, there are drivers available for some of these
printers. I had some private mails with a person on Internet asking for
help on writing a Tektronix driver. He actually got the stuff working. I
tried to find his name in my mail database but without success. So you
should ask in public.
The main problem of the Tektronix will be changes required in the
transfer.a or transfer.c (what ever you prefer) source. If you need
help…
— Wolf Faust, Am Dorfgarten 10, 60435 Frankfurt, Germany —
I just got the ROM Kernel Manual (I could not beleive I could find anything
for the Amiga now a days but some FAITHFULL (maybe HOPEFULL) stores had it.
Yes, on a first glance it looks like I would need to only change the transfer.c
(sorry i do not have the time do debug assembly YET). But I do not know if I
need to actually support the ASCII part of printing since this printer is so
stupid it won't even print ASCII (No characters built in).
Pretty much, all the printer can do is print dots of any of 7 colors, complain
when something is wrong, clean the jets, and initialize itself.
Do you know if a printer need to suppport character printing?
If so looks like I need to do quite a bit of work as I will probably need to
generate the characters in the computer and then send the entire bitmap matrix
down.
As far as someone done this before, I don't think so. This is printer is
the Tecktronix Phaser III PXi without the RISC/Postscript engine. Making it
the must stupid operational printer in the world. It has very little memory
(enough to store a row of dots).
The printer model is the Tektronix Phaser III RX and as fard as I know the
only people that sold it was us through an OEM agreement with Tektronix.
It's your time 😉 If you think nobody else made one… well, I wouldn't be so
sure and even if not, the other Phaser printers aren't that different and you
might get the source to start working on… at least transfer.c should look the
same for most Tektronix printers and all you need to do is changer render.c.
Non text printing printers can easily be indicated to the printer device by
setting a proper printer class in printertag.a. You may change data.c and
dospecial.c and remove all text parts in order to make the driver smaller…
but this is mainly cosmetic stuff and not really required if you just want to
use the driver on your own machine…
I check the manuals for the other Tektronix printers and at a quick glance it
does not look like they are the same. I will see if Tektronix has any inside
info, but I don't think they maintain anything on the Amiga. But since we have
prefer status with them at least they will not tell me off (right away). Even
though they seem different they have several things in common (other than the
Tektronix logo). Do you know who might have the source for any of the Phasers?
Or any Tektronix printer for that matter.
You mean that a printer does not have to be able to print ASCII. Cool!
I will (maybe) eventually add the ASCII printing capability but for right now I
will like it to just print graphics.
Thanks
Eduard
VIS
if your printer can't print ASCII and you want to write a driver able to print
text in gfx mode: forget it. This is a real nightmare task because the printer
device does has it's limitations here. The buffer for text is only 230 chars…
I doubt you can print gfx with that…. there are cases where you can get
arround this limitation, but so far, the only driver on the Amiga able to get
this done without errors is the Canon BJ5-230 and CaPSL driver. The PostScript
driver of WB 2.1/3.0 does similar things but has some bugs here…
So, I can tell you: forget it… unless you want to get 10 years older 😉
Regarding the source: ask in comp.sys.amiga.applications on UseNet. The person
writing the Tektronix driver is on there. Sorry, I checked my database, but
didn't found any reference (didn't kept it…).
Oh, oh. This now looks grim for text printing.
You mean I can not extend the text buffer withing the driver?
Yes, you are rigth 230 chars won't cut it! I don't even have to research that
one.
Well, no big deal. It is not like I was able to do it in the PC, and it is not
like I was going to do this right away. But it seems like an interesting
challenge.
Thanks for the info. At least if I don't make it I won't feel too bad.
Eduard
VIS