In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes
Now, one of the suggestions which has been banded around from the software
side is for someone to collaborate with me in order to produce a new printer
device, which could be used instead of PAR. That device would basically form
a pipe between any program sending text output and ProWesS (ProForma driver)
- provided that the input was in standard EPSON printer code format, it
should be relatively easy to translate this to Proforma and thereby
send graphic
output to a printer. However, I did ask Roy Wood to check if ProWesS
to print
to a modern Epson windows only printer and he has not come back to me on
this..
I did say to you at the time that I had very little access to other
printers than the standard EPSON ones. ProWesS is, unfortunately a non
starter as far as this is concerned because it still needs a driver for
each individual printer. It works great with most ESC/P2 printers (see
my EPL 6200 review in the next QL Today) I say most because EPSON fudged
the driver somewhat in the later printers and something strange seems to
happen with my C80. It also works well with some of the Laserjet
printers. and HP have kept a lot of backward compatibility. It works
less well with the Canon printers we tried it on a few years back and,
apart from your work, no-one else has made any other drivers. Although
the ProWesS system is raster orientated that does not help its printing
capabilities. Marcel has suggested Ghostscript as an alternative and
that does seem far more viable if someone could port it. The suggestion
of using a new device to replace PAR has appeared in Byts of Wood many
time in the last couple of years.
The other option which was broached, and which could form a new source of
funding for QL projects and the QL community in general, would be to build a
generic box, which could be connected to a parallel port. The box would
perform the translation and output to a printer - I would suggest that it be
programmed under Windows, as this would enable new printer drivers to
be downloaded
to the box quite easily. The box would take standard Epson (or HP) ASCII
output and convert it to the Windows driver in order to print to the
printer.
The box would ideally need to support USB printers as well as parallel
printers.
I also suggested this in my column an issue or so ago. I even spoke with
Tony Firshman about building such a device.
--
Roy Wood
Q Branch. 20 Locks Hill, Portslade, Sussex.BN41 2LB
Tel: +44 (0) 1273 386030 fax: +44 (0) 1273 430501
web : www.qbranch.demon.co.uk
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