#A-time and Prowriter
15 messages in this thread
I've just hooked up a C Itoh Prowriter (8510AP) to my parallel port,
and I've found I have a problem with A-time when I boot. I'm using the same
cable I used with aN IBM Graphics Printer. I seem to remember some messages
about having to clip one of the lines in a cable to this printer to prevent it
from interfering with the A-time clock. I don't remember any of the
explanation of why this happens or, more importantly, which line needs to be
disconnected. Can anyone help me with this problem? Also, can I get any
suggestions regarding the best driver to use with this printer.
Thanks in advance.
Bill Christens-Barry
Bill,
Pin #25 is the culprit….clip it and you should be fine.
Don
Thanks, Don, for the info about the C Itoh printer. I've since found that
neither of the drivers I dled work correctly. The Prowriter driver (called
prowri.dri in dl11) doesn't seem to pass a tab thru to the printer correctly.
Tabs just don't get seen by the printer. This brings me to a basic question
about printer drivers: what are they and what do they do? I have always
thought that a printer driver simply translated the standard print code from an
application into the appropriate code for a particular printer. This sounds to
me like a simple string translation table. But, I can also imagine some code
which is needed to condition the printer before any printing takes place,
unrelated to any specific strings to be printed. Am I on the right track here?
Can you direct me to a good, general explanation of these things? If I
understood the function better I might be able to modify drivers which I have.,
Thanks
Bill Christens-Barry
The 8510 does not support tabs.
Steve,
Thanks for your reply regarding tabbing and the 8510. I'm a little bit
confused, tho. The manual for this printer, supplied by Leading Edge,
indicates both the ability to set tabs (chr$(27);chr$(40);"a,b,c.") and to move
to the next tab stop (chr$(09)). Is this manual in error or am I missing
something here?
Bill Christens-Barry
Hmmm — maybe your's does support tabs. I have the same physical printer
(labeled NEC 8023c). The roms may be different in the 2 printers. Mine does
not have tab support — I have to fake it with spaces.
Bill,
Your intrepretation of what a printer driver does is exactly correct,
they translate the standard codes into codes your printer understands…IF that
can be done. In some cases…this is not a simple string translation but a
code block that performs the equivalent task as was requested. Example,
justified text….most printers can't automaticaly justify text (left and
right) so if someone wanted to go to the trouble of writing a code block that
did text justification then you could have a driver that supported text
justification even if your particular printer didn't have that capability
internaly.
As to tabs…they aren't ESC sequences, so should go thru normaly, it
is possible that the initialization string sets tab values for your printer to
0 so a tab would have no effect.
Don
Bill,
Whoops, forgot to tell you where you could read up on printer drivers.
There is a full write up on them in the Rom Kernel Manuals.
Don
Don,
Thanks for the scoop on printer drivers. I'll check the initial tab
stop values if I can. When I use my wp (Scribble!) to tab over on screen it
has the desired effect (I guess its initial tab stops are not set to zero), but
when I print the document the tab doesn't work. Why doesn't the wp tab info
get passed to the printer? Maybe I should explicitly set the tabs in Scribble!
and see what happens. But this doesn't really solve my problem – what will I
do with an editor I use which has fixed tabbing intervals? This seems like a
driver deficiency to me. WHat do you think and what do you suggest for a fix?
I don't have the Kernel manual.
Bill Christens-Barry
Bill,
If you printer supports tabs…then the only fix is a different driver
or try printing to PAR: rather than via the prt: device. That will only work
if the file you are printing is straight ASCII (including tabs).
What you see on screen isn't necessairly what you'll see in print,
tabbing on screen enters a tab character (^I or chr(09)) and the Amiga screen
routines work fine for that, but if the printer can't handle it…you won't get
a tab on printout.
The Amiga print commands (the standard set) have no "tab" command, but
they do have a "initialize tabs", "set tabs" and "clear tabs" commands. More
than likely, your driver when it initializes, does an "initialize tabs" so you
get the default set for your printer…whatever that may be. You could try an
embedded "set tabs" command (with the proper parameters) in the document or use
spaces instead as a work around.
Don
Bill:
I have an Apple Imagewriter which is really just a C-8510 in disguise.
There is a "set tabs" command just like you describe. All you have to do is
find out what spacing Scribble uses for a tab (I don't own Scribble, or I'd
tell you) and then find the "printer initialization string" that Scribble
hopefully allows. Use the "set tabs" command to set the tabs for the Scribble
preferred locations, and you should be all set.
I use a script that I made up to do this, and just type it to the SER:
port (for you, PAR:) before sending text files with tabs to the printer.
Ariel
Ariel,
I follow your description of how to exploit tabs from within my wp
(Scribble!), which works fine. While Scribble! has a menu item for setting
tabs and supports it correctly, I find that I haven't been able to duplicate
this from an editor I use which doesn't seem to support tabs. My hope is that I
can exploit them explicitly by issuing the correct string described in the
printer manual. Any idea on what the hangup might be?
Bill Christens-Barry
Bill:
When you say that your editor doesn't support tabs, I assume that what
you mean is that the editor won't send the tab init string to your printer.
For this, you'll probably have to multitask and send it in background, or (if
the editor resets the printer immediately prior to printing) imbed the string
at the beginning of your text.
If you don't want to imbed the text, how about considering just editing
your text (using tabs normally) and then saving it, and printing it by typing
something like:
type setup.txt to par: type myletter.txt to prt:
This will probably work, although if your printer-driver resets tabs
when it inits, you may have to send the setup file twice. The "setup" should
contain the string to set the tabs at the stops that the editor uses.
I have a small setup file for tabs every 5 chars up thru 80 if you'd
like to see it. I could EMAIL it to you, just let me know.
Ariel
Ariel,
I've tried some of your suggestions, altho not systematically. I'll
try again and let you know. How about Emailing me your setup file with an
example of how you use it.
Thanks a lot.
Bill Christens-Barry
Oooops, my other note to you has two lines concatenated by the text formatter.
put a <CR> after the "par:" on the line with the CLI commands.
Ariel