Hi Bruce, today, on FreeDOS, we rely on codepages already encoded into printer's firmware.
For instance, if I happen to be russian and type a text in russian then there's no problem since I most likely have a russian printer which is able to select russian codepages. However, what happens if I'm brazilian and I want to print a russian text in my brazilian printer? There's no cp866 on its firmware. There are programs which are able to somehow "upload" a codepage into a printer's RAM. There are ESC/P commands for that. I've tested a shareware program (for Windows) called DOSPRN which does exactly that. It has several codepages in its library. All I have to do is to type a russian text under DOS, run DOSprn, select codepage 866 on it and send the text to the printer. It works perfectly. A solution like this under FreeDOS would be perfect because it would override printer firmware limitations which are generally based on geography. My Epson Stylus Color 740 inkjet printer certainly does not have eastern european codepages in its firmware; on the other hand, most likely the very same printer sold on the russian market does not have, let's say, maltese codepage 853 or baltic codepage 775. Another important point for this need is that I devised several codepages for FreeDOS to assist several languages never previously assisted by any DOS-like OS which, being my creation, are therefore available on no printer's firmware. The idea is to be able to "send" these codepages to a printer as well. I've read a lot about ESC/P and ESC/P2 commands to know that this could be accomplished on several printers; I know that there are some printers who doesn't apply to that but many FreeDOS users would already be assisted. It would be interesting if there was some program which could somehow read the 8x16 font files encoded into FreeDOS CPI files so that it could build printer codepages out of the display codepages; if this happens to be too difficult or a big-time-consuming effort, I could provide the shape of all characters of all codepages on a TXT file with, let's say, matrixes of "0"s and "1"s representing the dots the compose them. As a matter of fact, I already prepared such file a long time ago. It has many latin, cyrillic, greek, georgian, armenian and many other characters which would already help us very much for a start. If you want me to enter even more into details, please send me a message: hperon @ terra.com.br . Thanks, Henrique Bruce M. Axtens escreveu: > Henrique > > Could you unpack that request a little. I don't think I quite understand > what you're after. > > Bruce. > > > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Henrique > Peron > Sent: Monday, 8 October 2007 10:03 AM > To: fd-dev > Subject: [Freedos-devel] Codepages and printers > > Hello all, > > would anyone volunteer to develop support for printing codepages? > > Thanks in advance for your attention, > Henrique > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- > This SF.net email is sponsored by: Splunk Inc. > Still grepping through log files to find problems? Stop. > Now Search log events and configuration files using AJAX and a browser. > Download your FREE copy of Splunk now >> http://get.splunk.com/ > _______________________________________________ > Freedos-devel mailing list > Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- > This SF.net email is sponsored by: Splunk Inc. > Still grepping through log files to find problems? Stop. > Now Search log events and configuration files using AJAX and a browser. > Download your FREE copy of Splunk now >> http://get.splunk.com/ > _______________________________________________ > Freedos-devel mailing list > Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel > > Esta mensagem foi verificada pelo E-mail Protegido Terra. > Scan engine: McAfee VirusScan / Atualizado em 05/10/2007 / Versão: 5.1.00/5135 > Proteja o seu e-mail Terra: http://mail.terra.com.br/ > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: Splunk Inc. Still grepping through log files to find problems? Stop. Now Search log events and configuration files using AJAX and a browser. Download your FREE copy of Splunk now >> http://get.splunk.com/ _______________________________________________ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
