Re: [Freedos-user] Printing over the network
On 21/04/2021 06:06, Michael Brutman wrote: If you have a printer that is network enabled and it speaks Postscript, PCL, Epson ESC P2, or plain text then you can "print to a file" under DOS and then use Netcat to send the file to your printer. +1. I used such method in the past, although I used jd.exe (wattcp-based) in lieu of netcat. I described the exact method on this list 14 years ago: https://www.mail-archive.com/freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net/msg06342.html Mateusz ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] Printing over the network
This is an old trick and I have it documented in the mTCP PDF documentation. Here is a quick overview. If you have a printer that is network enabled and it speaks Postscript, PCL, Epson ESC P2, or plain text then you can "print to a file" under DOS and then use Netcat to send the file to your printer. Most network printers listen on port 9100, and they'll interpret what they receive on that port in the same way they would interpret the data from a parallel or serial port. This is known as the "raw" port and HP introduced it back in the 90s. I've used this trick to print graphics from a PCjr to my modern Brother laser printer. The graphics were formatted for an IBM Graphics Printer, which uses a subset of Epson ESC P2. The printer can handle PostScript, PCL, Epson ESC P2, and plain text. The netcat command should look like this: nc -target 192.168.2.20 9100 -bin < testfile.prn Note that the -bin option is needed because your printer output might contain control codes. That's it. It is simple and it works. -Mike ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] AWK, SED, REXX (alternate .EXE builds)
Hi, I've not had a lot of energy or motivation to work on FreeDOS lately. So even these are a few months old. But hopefully somebody will still find these useful. (Note that these are not proper FD "packages", only random .ZIPs of a few local rebuilds.) So I was messing around with AWK, SED, and REXX (as already mentioned in older emails). I ended up rebuilding some interpreters for these languages, so here's my alternate builds (with vanilla sources since I didn't change any code). * https://sites.google.com/site/rugxulo/MAWK-TC.ZIP?attredirects=0=1 (308 kb) * https://sites.google.com/site/rugxulo/HHSEDGCC.ZIP?attredirects=0=1 (86 kb) * https://sites.google.com/site/rugxulo/REG393DJ.ZIP?attredirects=0=1 (3007 kb) Since I no longer have iBiblio access, they would normally be mirrored by me here: * http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/util/unix/awk/ * http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/util/unix/sed/ * http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/devel/rexx/ Long story short: 1). MAWK was rebuilt with Turbo C++ 1.01. So it's smaller and is compressed with UPX now. It also uses less memory but is a bit slower. 2). HHSED was the only SED interpreter I could get to build with IA16-GCC. (Warning: it outputs *nix LF-only files.) 3). REGINA 3.9.3 (DJGPP 2.05) is much newer than my ancient DJGPP build of 3.7 from 2012. But I saw no need to include Watt-32 support. Archive List and Date Stamp 0.94.4 beta by Joe Forster/STA Listing archive: c:\tmp\MAWK-TC.ZIP Original Packed Ratio Date TimeAttr Name - - - -- 59208 58638 99% 11-03-20 22:17:12 -A--- awk.exe 0 0 100% 04-20-21 21:18:54 D old\ 0 0 100% 04-20-21 21:20:24 D old\mawk122s\ 244632233401 95% 02-04-96 13:26:50 -A--- old\mawk122s\mawk122s.zip 0 0 100% 04-20-21 21:19:16 D old\mawk122x\ 17982 6817 37% 07-03-93 13:58:06 -A--R old\mawk122x\copying 44580 14145 31% 06-10-95 13:20:18 -A--- old\mawk122x\mawk.doc 2304 1186 51% 12-17-95 16:12:24 -A--- old\mawk122x\readme 333 240 72% 02-04-96 12:15:44 -A--- old\mawk122x\readme.1st 619 338 54% 11-03-20 22:17:12 -A--- readme.new - - - -- 369658314765 85% 04-20-21 21:20:24 7 files and 3 directories Listing archive: c:\tmp\HHSEDGCC.ZIP Original Packed Ratio Date TimeAttr Name - - - -- 739 457 61% 11-23-20 12:13:00 -A--- hhsed.bat 16901 16803 99% 11-23-20 11:27:28 -A--- sed.exe 0 0 100% 04-20-21 21:29:32 D old\ 0 0 100% 04-20-21 21:29:58 D old\sed15\ 4788 2364 49% 10-01-91 16:06:40 -A--- old\sed15\readme 20140 6878 34% 09-27-91 15:51:32 -A--- old\sed15\sedexec.c 27511 9883 35% 09-28-91 10:01:36 -A--- old\sed15\sedcomp.c 4612 1523 33% 09-30-91 12:49:26 -A--- old\sed15\sed.h 950 837 88% 05-04-86 13:08:38 -A--- old\sed15\test.zip 633 547 86% 09-20-91 14:43:02 -A--- old\sed15\tc20.zip 23344 22987 98% 10-01-91 16:03:00 -A--- old\sed15\history.zip 16252 16161 99% 09-22-91 11:28:36 -A--- old\sed15\docs.zip 0 0 100% 04-20-21 21:30:44 D old\sed15x\ 743 466 62% 09-24-91 11:56:26 -A--- old\sed15x\readme.15x 24949 7478 29% 09-22-91 11:28:36 -A--- old\sed15x\sed.lst - - - -- 141562 86384 61% 04-20-21 21:30:44 12 files and 3 directories Listing archive: c:\tmp\REG393DJ.ZIP Original Packed Ratio Date TimeAttr Name - - - -- 2907065 2856891 98% 10-06-19 01:19:42 -A--- reg393s.zip 223276221880 99% 11-17-20 14:53:16 -A--- regina.exe 125 120 96% 11-17-20 14:53:16 -A--- readme.new - - - -- 3130466 3078891 98% 11-17-20 14:53:16 3 files Hopefully somebody tests these further (or mirrors them)! Obviously I'm not an expert and don't claim to maintain them, but they should fully work as expected. ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Why do you use DOS
Well I'm admittedly late to the party on this one, but I guess I'll chime in anyway. I was born in '86 so by the time I started playing on computers it was in the Windows 95 days, and my first time actually using a computer with any real idea of what I was doing was on Windows 98. By that time everything I needed to do was GUI based so I never really used DOS and the first time I ever used a command-line tool was in college with XP systems. I started working in IT a couple years back and was more familiar with the Linux command line but I wanted to get a better feel for using it in Windows since that was what we used at work. I'm also fascinated by older and alternative tech so I setup a VM and installed a copy of MS-DOS 6 and started practicing it using an old DOS guide from the early 90's that I found on the Internet Archive. Shortly thereafter I heard Jim talking about FreeDOS with Bryan Lunduke and decided to give it a go. I primarily use it for distraction free writing (I'm boring and really like MS-EDIT, or whatever the built in text editor is), but I also enjoy the old games and exploring old programs like word processors, and the like. OpenGEM is also cool. I just wiped my old ThinkPad (T42) to install FreeDOS on actual hardware and look forward to getting more familiar with it. Dan On 4/14/2021 11:59 AM, Johnpaul Humphrey wrote: In light of the "DOS was dead" discussion, I wanted to ask a question. I was *born* after support was dropped for MS-DOS, so I can't claim nostalgia as my reason for use. Recently I installed FreeDOS on my modern HP-Pavilion laptop, alongside BSD, Linux, and plan9. I did this because I like DOS's speed and assembly programming. It worked fine after I fixed the beep bug with your help. So my question is, why do YOU use FreeDOS? Is it primarily nostalgia? Legacy program support? Speed? Note that I don't consider running legacy software a bad reason. I was shocked by how much good software has been "thrown away" because of its age. On Linux all my favorite software (vi, siag office, twm, motif ) was written before I was born. However, that is not my primary reason for using FreeDOS. my primary reason is because it is like the motorcycle of operating systems. It is lightweight, has no red tape to cut through to do things, and is monotasking. (Monotasking is also why I don't use it as much as I would like to, but why I use it at all.) I figured that if I had a different reason than what everybody assumes, that some of you might as well. Everyone seems to assume that DOS is used by people who are unable to cope with progress and have to run their ancient version of word perfect. If that is your reason, it is not a bad reason. I was thinking of eventually writing a 64-bit dos work [sort of] alike eventually, but it would not be able to support legacy programs due to segment offset addressing and a million other things. ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Print via USB
On 20 Apr 2021 at 10:41, Ralf Quint wrote: > dreaded (from the viewpoint of operability in DOS) USB connected > printers. Finding USB drivers, given that the printer is software > compatible with DOS as mentioned above, will likely be an exercise in > futility. If someone has a surefire way of doing that (where I > personally would even except non-FOSS solutions), specially one that > wouldn't interfere with any other USB drivers, like for storage media, > I would be happy to hear about it. > oh that's right. Suppose that you have good support in the BIOS for your USB keyboard, USB mouse and USB mass storage. Then you install the USB LPT driver by Bret Johnson, which takes over the whole UHCI, and may render your BIOS support for KB + Mouse + mass storage dead in the water :-/ Frank ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Print via USB / deprecate or improve PRINT queue tools?
On 20 Apr 2021 at 10:49, Ralf Quint wrote: > If you are talking laser printers, then that might exclude printers > that are Postscript only, as they require some software on the > computer side to translate plain text into a Postscript data stream > that the printer understands. Not such a big deal for simple text > files, I have written such a tool in the past in less than an > afternoon, but it is still an additional step to be taken, unless you > are printing from a DOS application that by itself is capable of > printing in Postscript (AFAIK, both Word for DOS and WordPerfect for > DOS come with Postscript printer drivers). > Bryan says he's got a Linux computer. I've never seen a build of "mpage" for MS-DOS, but I recall old howto's for lpd / printcap and using scripts as filters. I'd just set up an extra queue for plain ASCII input and use a2ps or mpage to convert on the fly into postscript. > A printer that natively understand PCL3 ... will commonly understand plain > text. > thanks for correcting me, my memory is flakey :-) Frank ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Clear your calendar!
Awesome! I was about to install 1.2 on an old ThinkPad I've got but I think I'll wait and give the RC a go. On 4/20/2021 5:39 AM, Jerome Shidel wrote: Clear your calendar and get ready! FreeDOS 1.3-RC4 is only days away. RC4 is in it’s final stage of testing and tweaking. There are loads of changes. Possibly more changes from RC3-RC4 than there was going from 1.2 to 1.3-RC1. :-) Jerome ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Dual Boot FreeDOS + WINDOWS ?
Hi Eric, inspired by your mail (and also help from others in the list! Thank you, folks!) I did the following: - I made a simple check of booting times: (startup when I hit the computers power button till the moment the system is working) FreeDOS starting from HD23 sec FreeDOS starting from USBstick 16 sec (this is inside my editor - autostart - and I can type already into a text!) Windows7 fresh install 59 sec (but not in the editor) So I did the following: - install Windows 7 - resize/format a separat 200 MB FAT partition (called „FDOS“) Now I can do the following: + hit the computer POWER ON and start working 16 seconds later (FreeDos, Text-Editor) + d:(change drive to see the „FDOS“ partition on the HDisk) + COPY (or MV) files from the Stick to the HDisk or back + save directly to the FDOS partition on the HDisk when in my editor …and obviously do all stuff (printing!) when I boot into Windows7 This is working nicely for me. No rocket science but a working system. Looking at the endless problems I encountered with trying to solve the USB/HD, printing issue, the hard way (which I wouldn’t be able to do anyway) I am quite happy with this configuration. Regarding the boot-time of 16 secs this is even better than booting from HD which doesn’t give me any advantage anyway. So if my FreeDOS bootingstick might become corrupt one day, I just have a copy at hand. Files are either on HD or separate Discs save. Thanks for your suggestions and help, - Thomas > Am 18.04.2021 um 22:25 schrieb Eric Auer : > > > Hi Thomas, > >> A dual boot Windows+FreeDos would be absolutely my preferred system... > > Can your Windows version resize itself? Can it create a FAT partition > for DOS in some other way? Then I think you should do that, maybe > already copy the contents of the DOS install disk there and boot > the DOS installer. In the installer, you can now skip the step of > partitioning and formatting the harddisk and just tell it to use > the FAT partition as install target. If your Windows itself uses > NTFS partitions, the FAT partition will be the only one visible > to DOS and it will be used as C: by DOS after install. It might > have another drive letter during install if C: is already used by > the install CD or USB stick, of course. > > Obviously, you should only use a Windows version of which you have > a license. If that is not the case, it probably is not worth the > effort to install ANY Windows at all. You can just dual-boot with > DOS and Linux then and let your Windows apps run in Wine on Linux. > > If you want a dual-boot system with Windows and Linux, the same > strategy as above should work: Use Linux to resize itself, or > maybe easier, tell it to create a FAT partition for DOS already > while you install Linux. Then boot the DOS install disk (CD, DVD > or USB stick) and tell the installer to use that FAT parttiion, > without FDISK changing partitions and without formatting. > > I have no idea what XP embedded can do or cannot do, but when > in doubt, it probably can do a lot less than Linux, because it > sounds like a stripped-down version of XP and XP is very old. > > Regards, Eric > > PS: The FAT partition for DOS should be a LBA partition and it > must be a primary (not extended / logical) partition, because > it is complicated to configure DOS to boot properly otherwise. > > You need to keep that in mind when making / resizing partitions, > but it should be quite feasible with GPARTED in Linux or maybe > with built-in or 3rd party tools of more modern Windows versions. > > > > ___ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user > ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Print via USB / deprecate or improve PRINT queue tools?
On 4/20/2021 8:24 AM, Adam Nielsen via Freedos-user wrote: I believe you have to install DOS USB drivers first. It's worse than that. I've tried to get many different printers working under Linux (which generally has pretty good hardware support) and it turns out that a lot of manufacturers cut corners on their devices and don't support standard print protocols like PostScript or PCL, and instead use a lightweight translation layer to pass the drawing calls in the Windows API over to the hardware. It basically means there are a number of (usually cheap) printers out there that will only work under Windows. Correct. So even if you do manage to get USB drivers, chances are slim you can get it to print. If you can find a modern printer that supports both PostScript and PCL, there's a fair chance that you can still get a parallel port interface adapter for it too so you won't need the USB drivers anyway. They're usually aimed at industrial/point-of-sale type users where the modern equipment still all uses the traditional interfaces. If you are talking laser printers, then that might exclude printers that are Postscript only, as they require some software on the computer side to translate plain text into a Postscript data stream that the printer understands. Not such a big deal for simple text files, I have written such a tool in the past in less than an afternoon, but it is still an additional step to be taken, unless you are printing from a DOS application that by itself is capable of printing in Postscript (AFAIK, both Word for DOS and WordPerfect for DOS come with Postscript printer drivers). A printer that natively understand PCL3 (PCL5 or PCL6 is nowadays not a sure thing of support anymore, specially on non-HP printers) will commonly understand plain text and can be used just fine, as long as you can physically connect it... Ralf -- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Print via USB
On 4/20/2021 7:59 AM, Thomas Desi wrote: If using a USB keyboard (and USB mouse), there is the problem that when starting the USB driver (USBUHCI from Bret Johnsons USButils collection), the Keyboard stops working. So you can’t start the keyboard driver next, which seems should done to get somewhere. Mr. Johnson was kindly replying to my inquiry on this. So my approach at the moment ist using a PS/2 Keyboard and Mouse to avoid this problem. („Hardware solution“) Using a USB keyboard (and/or mouse) is likely to work in +90% of all cases, as most computer BIOS support that at the hardware level, without the need of any USB drivers for those devices. All the computers that I have so far tried to install DOS on (and that have USB ports to begin with) are doing this just fine. As Eric ed. al. are pointing out, I have to agree that USB isn’t at all what I thought it was: neither „Universal“ in the sense of „easy“ nor „universal including DOS". On my ITX with a recent Bios. that Bios lets me use USB mouse and keyboard nicely right from booting, also a trackpad with no problem. So it also seems to be much a question what the inbuilt BIOS supports. see above Regarding printing I think there are two basic concepts: Using fonts from the printer (I call this „generic“, but maybe this is my private lingo) or using graphics from the computer. As I am only interested in printing out pure text (A-Z, 1-0 :) I wonder if you attempt to print out graphics or some special fonts or so? Might make a difference, too? Well, when printing from DOS, there are actually two and a half hurdles. The first one is at the software level. Without any additional software, a printer being used from DOS needs to be able to receive plain text, with additional capabilities either through the industry standard ESC/P (developed by Epson, who was for a long time the leader in printers before laser printers started to show up, then they kind of missed the bus) or by being "LaserJet II" (PCL3) compatible. An additional hurdle is that a lot of (El Cheapo) printers these days aren't actually processing "text/graphics into pixel" themselves anymore, but just expect to get all the final pixel data from the OS, which is not a problem for GUI OS like Windows or macOS, but pretty much is a no-go when printing from DOS. Full stop. The second one is the physical connection between the computer and the printer. And here's most likely where today soft brown matter hits a fast rotating appliance. DOS as designed only supports good old parallel (as in Centronics) or RS-232 type serial connections. Both of those are rare as hen's teeth on both newer computers and/or printers. But this will likely to 99.9% work right out of the box. Another possibility is printing on a networked printer, if that printer is accessible through an established network connection. Used to be a breeze back in the days on a Novell network, is a bit harder these days when you require SMB (and likely the nowadays frowned upon SMB 1.x protocol). But the whole networking on DOS these days is lik going down a really dark rabbit hole... That leaves us once again with the dreaded (from the viewpoint of operability in DOS) USB connected printers. Finding USB drivers, given that the printer is software compatible with DOS as mentioned above, will likely be an exercise in futility. If someone has a surefire way of doing that (where I personally would even except non-FOSS solutions), specially one that wouldn't interfere with any other USB drivers, like for storage media, I would be happy to hear about it. And just to cover all bases, the "serial" in USB has absolutely nothing to with the old and venerable RS-232 style serial connections, it is something that is FAR more complex... Ralf -- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Recovery of a file on a non booting Windows computer
I agree that booting to a live Linux instance would be a better solution here. I've had to do this many times and honestly it doesn't really matter what live image you use. Mint is fine. I personally prefer Ubuntu MATE or Xubuntu but it doesn't really matter. It should give you access to the Windows drive through the file manager (both graphical and CLI). On 4/14/2021 4:30 PM, Mercury Thirteen via Freedos-user wrote: +1 on the Linux Mint recommendation. Out of all the Linuxi I've personally tried, I've found Mint to be quite user friendly and I would say it's a great place to start for those more familiar with a Windows-like interface. Sent with ProtonMail Secure Email. ‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐ On Wednesday, April 14, 2021 12:43 PM, Ralf Quint wrote: On 4/14/2021 5:19 AM, Stephanos wrote: Dear All I want to boot to freeDOS using a CD ROM. Then I want to insert a memory stick into the computer and copy a file from the Windows HDD onto the memory stick. Is this possible and if so which version of freeDOS do I use? If you are talking about any Windows newer than Windows ME, simply forget about this route. Use a Linux Live CD (I personally would recommend Linux Mint 20.1 Mate) and use that one instead... Ralf -- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Clear your calendar!
On 4/20/2021 2:39 AM, Jerome Shidel wrote: Clear your calendar and get ready! FreeDOS 1.3-RC4 is only days away. RC4 is in it’s final stage of testing and tweaking. There are loads of changes. Possibly more changes from RC3-RC4 than there was going from 1.2 to 1.3-RC1. :-) Looking forward to it... Ralf -- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Print via USB
On 21 Apr 2021 at 0:00, Bryan Kilgallin wrote: > I had transferred data from my DOS PC to my Linux PC via a USB-2 > stick. But I thought that I might do something as simple as printing > text, directly from the DOS machine. > So there's another solution, one I already hinted at: Install Samba on your Linux PC. It may take a wee bit of learning to configure, but it does not bite back. I can help with snippets of config to make it accept ancient DOS clients. Install the Microsoft Network Client for MS-DOS. You can install this from scratch, or you can try using/refactoring the NetBootDisk: https://www.netbootdisk.com/floppy/download.htm ...and then redirect the LPT device: NET USE LPT1: \\my_samba_server\printer_queue Actually I hope I'm not kidding here... most of the howtos mentioning this command are actually about doing this in a Windows command prompt = a more modern version of the MS Network stack... I've never tried this myselfs in pure DOS. Frank ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Print via USB
Hi, Bryan, because I am fiddling with similar questions. (Can’t compete anywhere near to the proficient replies of Eric and Frantisek though!) If using a USB keyboard (and USB mouse), there is the problem that when starting the USB driver (USBUHCI from Bret Johnsons USButils collection), the Keyboard stops working. So you can’t start the keyboard driver next, which seems should done to get somewhere. Mr. Johnson was kindly replying to my inquiry on this. So my approach at the moment ist using a PS/2 Keyboard and Mouse to avoid this problem. („Hardware solution“) As Eric ed. al. are pointing out, I have to agree that USB isn’t at all what I thought it was: neither „Universal“ in the sense of „easy“ nor „universal including DOS". On my ITX with a recent Bios. that Bios lets me use USB mouse and keyboard nicely right from booting, also a trackpad with no problem. So it also seems to be much a question what the inbuilt BIOS supports. Regarding printing I think there are two basic concepts: Using fonts from the printer (I call this „generic“, but maybe this is my private lingo) or using graphics from the computer. As I am only interested in printing out pure text (A-Z, 1-0 :) I wonder if you attempt to print out graphics or some special fonts or so? Might make a difference, too? I also had tried printing using the Centronics cable/port. Thanks to Eric for COPY x.txt PRN or COPY x.pdf LPT1 I will try again ;) Just a user experience… regards, Th. > Am 20.04.2021 um 16:37 schrieb Frantisek Rysanek : > > Dear Mr. Kilgallin, > > your request is less obvious than may have initially seemd to you. > > DOS knows an OS-level "device" called LPT1. And, most software for > DOS that needs to print, can use this software-level LPT1 device > (using a DOS service to print). > > DOS and BIOS work together to forward data from LPT1 to the physical > parallel port (i8255 compatible hardware, if my memory serves). > To this day, most PC's still contain SuperIO chips (on LPC bus, > backward compatible with ISA) that still have the ability to > implement the LPT, but few modern motherboards actually have a > physical LPT... (and therefore the SuperIO chips aren't even > configured to decode the addresses anymore, 0x378 and whatnot. No > use.) > But, yours is a different problem: your printer does not even have > LPT "input". You really do need to somehow spoonfeed the data into > the USB port. > Technically, a USB printer shows up on the USB bus as a "USB LPT > device", or "USBLP". The USB standard has a "device class" for this, > and modern operating systems have a generic class-based driver for > this... which is not the case of MS-DOS. > > Effectively, you need a stack of USB drivers for DOS, that will make > use of a USB host controller (UHCI / EHCI / XHCI), enumerate the bus, > and upon encountering a USBLP device, load a generic class-based > driver for that device. Presenting a legacy LPT1 software device in > MS-DOS, and feeding the data to the USB LPT physical port. > > To the best of my knowledge, there's a single driver package of this > kind that I know about, working on bare metal in pure old DOS - the > one by Bret Johnson: > http://bretjohnson.us/ > > More prose about USB printing in DOS: > https://www.wpuniverse.com/vb/showthread.php?38551-Print-to-USB-printe > r-in-pure-MS-DOS-system/page2=8f49961ada033bce8d27f50b29967cd1 > > Bret Johnson's driver only supports UHCI controllers, which were only > included in the PC chipsets up to and including Intel 4x series > (coming with the 45nm Core2 generation of CPU's). After that, it's > pure USB EHCI 2.0 only. Until about Skylake, which is USB 3.0 XHCI > only... > > Apparently, you are lucky, because the OptiPlex GX270 appears to be a > Pentium 4 generation PC. Already supporting USB 2.0 and having an > EHCI, but in addition to that, all the USB ports are also available > via an UHCI (USB 1.1 controller). So I suggest that you give Brett's > driver a try. > > An alternative approach might be, to attach the USB printer to a > Windows PC and share the printer on the network, and install a > Microsoft Network client for MS-DOS on your DOS-only PC, and map the > LPT1 over the network to your Windows PC. This LPT mapping is done > using the "net use" command. But, you need to be able to configure > the networking stuff, preferably over TCP/IP nowadays. Note that > making the MS Network client from the DOS era talk to a modern > Windows machine in the server role can be a challenge in itself. If > you're lucky, you can learn about registry entries that dumb down the > security mechanisms in Windows enough to accept the shitty ancient > security model used by the DOS client... I don't promise that this > still has a chance of success in Windows 10. I believe it does have a > chance against Samba in Linux, which I'm still using to serv8e > PXE-booted diskless clients (for disk mapping, not for
Re: [Freedos-user] Print via USB
Hi Thomas, > If using a USB keyboard (and USB mouse), there is the problem that > when starting the USB driver (USBUHCI from Bret Johnsons USButils > collection), the Keyboard stops working. So you can’t start the > keyboard driver next, which seems should done to get somewhere. The trick would be to write a batch file (filename loadusb.bat, content simply the commands you want to run, one per line) and then run the batch file (by typing "loadusb" and hitting enter) to run all commands as one sequence. After that, you should be able to use your keyboard and other USB things, as long as you load Bret's USB drivers for all things you want to support :-) > Mr. Johnson was kindly replying to my inquiry on this. > So my approach at the moment ist using a PS/2 Keyboard and Mouse > to avoid this problem. („Hardware solution“) Of course that is a possibility - if you HAVE a PS/2 keyboard and PS/2 connectors in your system. For other people, it is not. > As Eric et al. are pointing out, I have to agree that USB isn’t at > all what I thought it was: neither „Universal“ in the sense of „easy“ > nor „universal including DOS". On my ITX with a recent Bios. that > Bios lets me use USB mouse and keyboard nicely right from booting, > also a trackpad with no problem. So it also seems to be much a > question what the inbuilt BIOS supports. But even on the system where you try to print things, the KEYBOARD already works with the USB support of your BIOS, so that is more or less the same. I just say that your BIOS is unlikely to help at all for serial or parallel (printer) port simulations or for example for printers or external modems or similar. So you still have to use USB drivers for USB printers. As you already say, only EITHER the BIOS OR the DOS USB driver can manage one USB controller. You can either tell the driver to manage only some, but not all of your USB ports/controllers, or you will have to load DOS USB drivers for everything and no longer use BIOS USB support at all, as in the "loadusb.bat" way. > Regarding printing I think there are two basic concepts: Using fonts > from the printer (I call this „generic“, but maybe this is my private > lingo) or using graphics from the computer. As I am only interested > in printing out pure text (A-Z, 1-0 :) As explained here earlier, printers differ in what they accept as input. Some accept plain text. Some accept PDF or Postscript. Some accept ESC/P or other "printer languages". Some actually do NOT accept plain text. Some do not accept any "normal" file format: Those can ONLY print graphics, which means you must use special drivers which turn everything into graphics first. Your printer luckily does not have that problem. So as Frantisek said, your chances are quite okay to use the MTCP NETCAT trick to send a TEXT (or at least PDF) file from DOS to the printer by network. That could actually be easier than using USB, even when this is counterintuitive for you. Not sure which network chip your PC has? > I also had tried printing using the Centronics cable/port. > Thanks to Eric for COPY x.txt PRN or COPY x.pdf LPT1 That would of course be the EASIEST option as long as your PC and your printer both still have Centronics connectivity :-) Regards, Eric ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Print via USB
...just to follow up on what others have said, Bryan's printer is too old to support PDF, but it is a pretty decent color laser apparently, likely supports PCL5 in "HP emulation" mode, and something called "BR-script (PostScript layer 3 emulation)" which I hope gets rendered in the printer too, rather than using a translation layer in Windoze :-) The printer accepts jobs via IPP, LPR and JetDirect, therefore I don't think its a stupid super-cheap GDI printer. Some modern super-cheap printers support the PCLm first and foremost. Some older super-cheap printers would accept PCL3... Frank ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Print via USB / deprecate or improve PRINT queue tools?
> I believe you have to install DOS USB drivers first. It's worse than that. I've tried to get many different printers working under Linux (which generally has pretty good hardware support) and it turns out that a lot of manufacturers cut corners on their devices and don't support standard print protocols like PostScript or PCL, and instead use a lightweight translation layer to pass the drawing calls in the Windows API over to the hardware. It basically means there are a number of (usually cheap) printers out there that will only work under Windows. So even if you do manage to get USB drivers, chances are slim you can get it to print. If you can find a modern printer that supports both PostScript and PCL, there's a fair chance that you can still get a parallel port interface adapter for it too so you won't need the USB drivers anyway. They're usually aimed at industrial/point-of-sale type users where the modern equipment still all uses the traditional interfaces. Cheers, Adam. ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Print via USB
On 20 Apr 2021 at 16:59, Thomas Desi wrote: > Regarding printing I think there are two basic concepts: > Using fonts from the printer (I call this "generic", but maybe this > is my private lingo) or using graphics from the computer. > As I am only interested in printing out pure text (A-Z, 1-0 :) I > wonder if you attempt to print out graphics or some special fonts > or so? Might make a difference, too? Built-in fonts are obviously an option, there's always some plain ASCII built in, and I believe in the old DOS era there used to be... programs that you ran before printing your jobs, that would pre-upload font sets or national character sets into the printer, so that your print jobs could then refer to those fonts and produce the desired output on paper. Epson dot matrix printers (ESC*P language) were perfectly willing to print individual characters, a line at a time I guess. They were (are) line printers and the ESC*P "language" is little more than an "extension" of raw ASCII + control characters (CR, LF, FF etc) by "escape sequences on top" - for switching fonts and maybe more complex tasks. I mean to say that if you copy a flat ASCII File to an Epson printer, you get some noise and some output on paper. Laser printer formats are page-oriented, and are not "evolved from plain ASCII" in the way that sending a paragraph of raw ASCII text would yield visible output on paper, even if a "formfeed" provokes the printer to load paper and print a page (not sure if this even works). Even in PCL, you need to provide some commands to the printer, to place some text on the page and get it "rendered on paper". Let alone PostScript - quite a tightly specified "well formed" format. Obviously you can embed bitmaps in PCL and PostScript print jobs. Esc*P can do it too. When printing from modern software, every page can be just a huge embedded bitmap. And, there are printers that can *only* print bitmaps, albeit in a thin wrap of some standardized format: think PCLm (in spite of its name, it is a gutted / stripped down version of PDF). Umm... getting off topic, am I... Frank ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Print via USB / deprecate or improve PRINT queue tools?
On 20 Apr 2021 at 16:21, Eric Auer wrote: > > Hi Bryan, > > I believe you have to install DOS USB drivers first. And actually it > could work better to use the NETWORK for printing, because DOS (wired > LAN) network drivers are more evolved than DOS USB drivers and you can > use DOS versions of NETCAT or other tools to copy the contents you > want to print to the IP and port of your printer as hopefully listed > in your printer documentation or visible in some status information > screen when you print from Linux :-) > Eric has cracked it :-) There appears to be a version of Netcat for DOS, even including an example of how to copy a file to the printer: https://www.brutman.com/mTCP/mTCP_Netcat.html It requires just a packet driver for your NIC. So if printing into a file and copying that by an extra command is not a problem, there's your solution Bryan... Frank ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Print via USB
Dear Mr. Kilgallin, your request is less obvious than may have initially seemd to you. DOS knows an OS-level "device" called LPT1. And, most software for DOS that needs to print, can use this software-level LPT1 device (using a DOS service to print). DOS and BIOS work together to forward data from LPT1 to the physical parallel port (i8255 compatible hardware, if my memory serves). To this day, most PC's still contain SuperIO chips (on LPC bus, backward compatible with ISA) that still have the ability to implement the LPT, but few modern motherboards actually have a physical LPT... (and therefore the SuperIO chips aren't even configured to decode the addresses anymore, 0x378 and whatnot. No use.) But, yours is a different problem: your printer does not even have LPT "input". You really do need to somehow spoonfeed the data into the USB port. Technically, a USB printer shows up on the USB bus as a "USB LPT device", or "USBLP". The USB standard has a "device class" for this, and modern operating systems have a generic class-based driver for this... which is not the case of MS-DOS. Effectively, you need a stack of USB drivers for DOS, that will make use of a USB host controller (UHCI / EHCI / XHCI), enumerate the bus, and upon encountering a USBLP device, load a generic class-based driver for that device. Presenting a legacy LPT1 software device in MS-DOS, and feeding the data to the USB LPT physical port. To the best of my knowledge, there's a single driver package of this kind that I know about, working on bare metal in pure old DOS - the one by Bret Johnson: http://bretjohnson.us/ More prose about USB printing in DOS: https://www.wpuniverse.com/vb/showthread.php?38551-Print-to-USB-printe r-in-pure-MS-DOS-system/page2=8f49961ada033bce8d27f50b29967cd1 Bret Johnson's driver only supports UHCI controllers, which were only included in the PC chipsets up to and including Intel 4x series (coming with the 45nm Core2 generation of CPU's). After that, it's pure USB EHCI 2.0 only. Until about Skylake, which is USB 3.0 XHCI only... Apparently, you are lucky, because the OptiPlex GX270 appears to be a Pentium 4 generation PC. Already supporting USB 2.0 and having an EHCI, but in addition to that, all the USB ports are also available via an UHCI (USB 1.1 controller). So I suggest that you give Brett's driver a try. An alternative approach might be, to attach the USB printer to a Windows PC and share the printer on the network, and install a Microsoft Network client for MS-DOS on your DOS-only PC, and map the LPT1 over the network to your Windows PC. This LPT mapping is done using the "net use" command. But, you need to be able to configure the networking stuff, preferably over TCP/IP nowadays. Note that making the MS Network client from the DOS era talk to a modern Windows machine in the server role can be a challenge in itself. If you're lucky, you can learn about registry entries that dumb down the security mechanisms in Windows enough to accept the shitty ancient security model used by the DOS client... I don't promise that this still has a chance of success in Windows 10. I believe it does have a chance against Samba in Linux, which I'm still using to serv8e PXE-booted diskless clients (for disk mapping, not for printing, but the auth is the same I guess). Your printer apparently also supports network printing: via IPP (too modern), JetDirect style raw TCP port 9100, and UNIX standard LPR. Unfortunately, it does not contain a Microsoft Network stack (samba/CIFS) so you cannot map the printer directly by "net use ..." I've found hints that Xerox or Sun used to have an implementation of the command-line LPR client for MS-DOS: http://download.support.xerox.com/pub/docs/DC240_DC250/userdocs/any-os /en/Using_lpr_Utilities_for_DOS_and_Unix.pdf ...apparently dependent on some "very own" TCP/IP stack for DOS, and not hooking LPT1 = you could print from your software into a file and then copy that file to the network printer using the LPR utility. I haven't found any resident driver for pure MS-DOS to capture LPT1 and print to LPR or even just JetDirect (raw TCP port). How about using a Raspberry PI to build a Samba printserver for your USB/LAN-attached printer? :-D Or, if you resort to running your DOS software in Windows or even some kind of DOS PC emulator on any modern OS, your goal to forward jobs from LPT1 to any miscellaneous printer would be much easier to achieve. If all else fails, there is commercial software for Windows to help you with that. So... suppose that you've built a path for your data from the LPT1 abstraction to your actual USBLP printer. The next question is: print job format. The printer language. Looking into the docs of your printer, it's new enough to support "laserjet emulation" (read: HP PCL at some older version) and apparently PostScript as well :-) This sounds good. Don't expect the printer to print a plain ASCII file
Re: [Freedos-user] Print via USB / deprecate or improve PRINT queue tools?
Hi Bryan, I believe you have to install DOS USB drivers first. And actually it could work better to use the NETWORK for printing, because DOS (wired LAN) network drivers are more evolved than DOS USB drivers and you can use DOS versions of NETCAT or other tools to copy the contents you want to print to the IP and port of your printer as hopefully listed in your printer documentation or visible in some status information screen when you print from Linux :-) >> I have just connected my Brother HL-3150CDN laser printer to my Dell>> >> OptiPlex GX270. > I used the FreeDOS "print" command, unembellished. That is only needed for background printing. A more straightforward way is to send the printer data to the printer port: COPY x.txt PRN or COPY x.pdf LPT1 or similar. > The FreeDOS PC monitor listed the following line at the end of > information after I unsuccessfully attempted to print. > >> "Device to direct Print [PRN=0]". This message seems to have the purpose of giving feedback regarding which output device the background printing tool PRINT is using. Unfortunately, there is no PRINT.TXT and only a PRINT.ASM about James Tabor's PRINT 1.02 tool, but it seems to support only: PRINT /1 file.txt Which means "send file.txt to LPT1 in the background" where you can also use /2 or /3 to use LPT2 or LPT3 instead. The MS PRINT tool would also support /S:ticks /M:ticks /U:ticks /Q:count /B:size and /D:device. For things which MS PRINT would support directly, you need the separate PRINTQ tool in FreeDOS: Clear the queue or add more files to the queue later. The whole toolkit seems to be rather minimal in FreeDOS, probably because printing things in the BACKGROUND has been a rarely used feature in the last decade. This tool could use a lot of improvement, but maybe we could just warn people that it is not really necessary and the current tool version is only the most minimal implementation of the feature. > I expect that no data went to the printer. I agree, in particular if you have not loaded USB drivers. >> What do I need to do? Please try via network, or load USB drivers. Also, please use COPY filename LPT1 or COPY filename PRN or similar instead of using PRINT: Background printing adds complexity and gives you less clear view on potential transfer errors. Regards, Eric > http://wiki.freedos.org/wiki/index.php/Printer PS: PRINTQ is a small public domain tool by Robert Mashlan to add or cancel files on PRINT (MS, FreeDOS, etc.) print queues. ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Print via USB
I had transferred data from my DOS PC to my Linux PC via a USB-2 stick.
But I thought that I might do something as simple as printing text,
directly from the DOS machine.
I wrote:
I have just connected my Brother HL-3150CDN laser printer to my Dell
OptiPlex GX270.
My printer usually receives instructions from a Linux PC via an Ethernet
cable. But it also has a USB B port. So I used a USB cable to connect
that to a spare USB A port on my old DOS PC.
I made a test text document, and I tried just to print
it.
I used the FreeDOS "print" command, unembellished.
That didn't work,
The printer did not respond.
but I noticed the following advice:
The FreeDOS PC monitor listed the following line at the end of
information after I unsuccessfully attempted to print.
"Device to direct Print [PRN=0]".
I expect that no data went to the printer.
What do I need to do?
Please walk me through attempting to print from FreeDOS via USB.
{Microsoft did not include USB support in MS-DOS, even though they
actually continued to make DOS for several years after USB came out
(mid-1990s). No version of DOS (including FreeDOS) today has native
support for USB devices: printers, mice, keyboards, etc.
There are only two possible solutions right now if you want to print to
a USB printer in DOS (and not under a virtual "DOS Box" of some sort).
Bret Johnson is working on DOS USB drivers, but they are not in a
finished state yet and may not work everywhere yet (depends on hardware).}
http://wiki.freedos.org/wiki/index.php/Printer
--
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[Freedos-user] Print via USB
I have just connected my Brother HL-3150CDN laser printer to my Dell OptiPlex GX270. I made a test text document, and I tried just to print it. That didn't work, but I noticed the following advice: "Device to direct Print [PRN=0]". What do I need to do? -- members.iinet.net.au/~kilgallin/ ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Clear your calendar!
Cool! You never know, I might finally get around to finishing putting together my 486 PC. That'll be fun! On Tue, 20 Apr 2021, 10:40 Jerome Shidel, wrote: > Clear your calendar and get ready! > > FreeDOS 1.3-RC4 is only days away. > > RC4 is in it’s final stage of testing and tweaking. > > There are loads of changes. > > Possibly more changes from RC3-RC4 than there was going from 1.2 to > 1.3-RC1. > > :-) > > Jerome > > ___ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user > ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] Clear your calendar!
Clear your calendar and get ready! FreeDOS 1.3-RC4 is only days away. RC4 is in it’s final stage of testing and tweaking. There are loads of changes. Possibly more changes from RC3-RC4 than there was going from 1.2 to 1.3-RC1. :-) Jerome ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
