Let's just say that we are lazy (like everyone love to talk about the Greek
people) xD.
Now it's late it's true, 1 month as passed over the limit date (but we can
play with the time since a lot of enterprises don't have any more POS in
stock, so just a "bill" telling that you have already buy something is enough
to get you out of troubles (so we use the printer's one).
As for the rest. I have some good news (bad for me since I don't have the
time anymore until the end of the month but they may interest you). I've
found everything needed to develop a line mode driver for this printer. I
also know that every USB printer from this company works on Gnu/Linux with
Free Drivers (using the GPLv2 license.. don't know if they are going to use
GPLv3 for the newer printers).
No Line Mode drivers available for Gnu/Linux (needed for all the Star
printers using Serial or Parallel connection like mine). But they have been
friendly enough to include a full .pdf documentation with all the information
necessary to build the Line Mode Filter.
Here is the links :
http://www.starasia.com/productshow.asp?id=82
This is the PDF for the Line Mode Programming:
http://www.starasia.com.hk/dl/manual/linemodepm.pdf
This is the package with the source code for the Raster Drivers :
http://www.starasia.com.hk/dl/driver/starcupsdrv-3.0.0_linux_20090130.tar.zip
And the library to implement with our application (allowing to print directly
using any connection) also in GPLv2:
http://www.starasia.com.hk/dl/driver/starcupsdrv-3.0.0_linux_20090130.tar.zip
I would love to edit the filter (I've been talking with some people from the
Cups side to see what could be done), but I don't have the time to do that in
3 days + testing in real life for at least a week in order to correct any bug
from any possible situation.
Even if I wanted to be lazy and just buy the Ethernet or Usb Interface (that
would cost 59$ something like that), it would take more than 3 days(from the
USA) to arrive.
So, and without any better idea. This is my plan :
1 - Use Windows for the drivers and fast support.
2 - Use a cross-platform certified POS application in order to switch to
Trisquel after I found a solution (without having to pay the license again).
3 - Create a 64bits binary version and a .deb for both 32bits and 64bits for
those using a Ubuntu based distribution or simply a 64bits distribution and
not knowing how to compile from the sources.
4 - Create a repository on github (or gitorious) with the actual code from
Star in order to avoid what happend in the USA version of the website (where
the source code from an older version made only for this printer is now
missing and they can't provide that file anymore).
5 - Try to find the time and the money to get another printer to build a
filter for the Line Mode (this could actually be very usefull for a lot of
people since after that it would only be needed to change the HexaDecimal
adresses of the machine itself and a few options).
Other then that. And even knowing the problems I had. I want to thank you for
talking about this company :D They are better than what I was expecting !
(even if it doesn't work on Gnu/Linux for this interface).
