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PRINTGL 1.00 REFERENCE (C) Copyright Cary Ravitz 1990 Cary Ravitz P. O. Box 25068 Lexington, KY 40524-5068 g-1 CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ..................................................... 2 LICENSE AND REGISTRATION 2 INSTALLATION ..................................................... 3 OPERATION 3 SYNTAX ........................................................... 4 /A - LOCATION OPTION 5 /C - PEN COLOR OPTION ............................................ 5 /D - OUTPUT DESTINATION OPTION 5 /F - OUTPUT FORMAT OPTION ........................................ 6 /I - SCALING POINT LOCATION OPTION 6 /L - PAGE LAYOUT OPTION .......................................... 7 /M - MAGNIFICATION OPTION 7 /N - PAGE NUMBER OPTION .......................................... 8 /O - ORIGIN AND ORIENTATION OPTION 8 /P - PLOTFILE OPTION ............................................. 8 /S - PEN SHADING OPTION 8 /T - TEMPORARY FILE OPTION ....................................... 8 /W - PEN WIDTH OPTION 9 /Y - Y/D SWITCH SETTING OPTION ................................... 9 /Z - CHORD ANGLE OPTION 9 EPSON 9 PIN PRINTERS ............................................ 10 EPSON 24 PIN PRINTERS 10 HP LASERJET ..................................................... 10 HP PAINTJET 10 IBM LASERPRINTER ................................................ 11 IBM PROPRINTER 11 IBM PROPRINTER X24 COMPATIBLE PRINTERS, IBM QUICKWRITER ......... 11 IBM PROPRINTER X24 11 IBM QUIETWRITER 2 AND 3 ......................................... 11 CGA DISPLAY 12 EGA DISPLAY ..................................................... 12 HERCULES DISPLAY 12 MCGA DISPLAY .................................................... 12 VGA DISPLAY 12 BIT MAPS ........................................................ 12 PLOTFILE SPECIFICS 13 LINE TYPE PATTERNS .............................................. 14 COMPATIBILITY AND TECHINCAL INFORMATION 15 WHAT TO DO IF YOU HAVE PROBLEMS ................................. 15 g-2 INTRODUCTION PrintGL prints an HP-GL (Hewlett-Packard Graphics Language) plotfile on a matrix printer. HP-GL is HP's pen plotter control language that is widely supported by graphics programs including AutoCAD, GenCAD, MathCAD, SAS, MICROCADAM, Schema, and many more. PrintGL has native mode drivers for Epson compatible 9 and 24 pin dot matrix printers, HP LaserJet, DeskJet, and PaintJet, and IBM 9 and 24 pin Proprinters, Quietwriter 2 and 3, and LaserPrinter. It will also display plots with a CGA, EGA, VGA, enhanced VGA, or HGC and output a bit map. Even if your graphics program supports your printer, you may find that PrintGL gives better print quality. PrintGL uses the best graphics modes available for each printer that it supports. If you need printed graphics output from personal software, you can output HP-GL and use PrintGL to do the printing. This gives immediate support to a wide range of printers. PrintGL interprets all of the HP 7470 command set that is applicable to plotfiles. None of the digitize, output, or device control commands (except plotter on and off) are supported as these are only used with direct control of a plotter. And the error mask command is not supported. In addition to the HP 7470 commands, PrintGL handles paper feed commands and eight pens (instead of two). If you are interested in using PrintGL as a printer driver in a commercial program, contact me. I can prepare a special version with a program interface, alternate vector language input, alternate font, or support for additional printers. LICENSE AND REGISTRATION You may use PrintGL without charge on a trial basis to determine its suitability for you. If you continue to use PrintGL after your evaluation a $25 registration is requested. PrintGL is provided as is. There are no warranties expressed or implied. You may distribute PrintGL if you keep the entire package together, unchanged, including this license explanation, and do not charge more than a small handling fee ($10). To register your copy of PrintGL, send your name, address, and $25 check to: Cary Ravitz P. O. Box 25068 Lexington, KY 40524-5068 You will not receive a new copy of PrintGL. The bulletin board distribution package is the complete, full function program. g-3 INSTALLATION The PrintGL package consists of these files: PRINTGL.EXE program PRINTGL.DOC documentation SAMPLE.PLT sample plotfile To install PrintGL copy the distribution files to your working disk or directory. PRINTGL.EXE is a stand alone executable file. There are no extra printer driver files or overlays. PRINTGL.DOC is this manual. You can print it with "COPY PRINTGL.DOC PRN" (16 pages). SAMPLE.PLT is a sample plotfile to help you try out PrintGL. OPERATION PrintGL reads a plotfile, does arc and character to line conversion, stores the data in a coordinate list, and if needed, puts the list on disk. It then reorients the data and determines the plot size. Next the data is resized and relocated. Finally the coordinate list is rasterized and printed in swaths. You are likely to see the printer print a swath and stop while PrintGL is processing the next swath. When you display a plot, press Esc to return to the DOS text screen. Ctrl-Break stops PrintGL at the next break point. Ctrl-Break is ignored when PrintGL is waiting for user input. If your plotfile contains any IW (input window) commands then PrintGL does any automatic centering and sizing (as specified by the /A and /F options) assuming that you want to see the entire window, even if there is no data in the window. PrintGL works within a printer's current margins and starts at the current print position. If you decline the form feed suboption of the /L option then PrintGL leaves the printer at the start of the line directly below the plot. All printing is done in printer lines that cover the full width of the printhead. This is noted in the screen output so that you can determine exactly how much space the plot takes. For example, if you specify a 3 inch high plot (with the /L option) with a 24 pin printer, PrintGL notes "23 lines 24/180 inch/line", so the actual height of the plot is 3.067 inches. Internally PrintGL uses two byte coordinates on a 1016 dots per inch grid. This allows for plots with coordinates of over 30 inches - far larger than an HP7470 can handle. However if you are using PrintGL to emulate a large plotter, you may overflow the internal coordinate system. This condition is not checked, and it will cause garbage output. You can change the internal resolution to 508 dots per inch (giving 60 inch maximum plot sizes) by editing PRINTGL.EXE with a binary editor - search for the string "indpi" and change the next two bytes from hex F803 to hex FC01. g-4 SYNTAX The calling syntax of PrintGL is: PRINTGL plotfile /option1 /option2 ... The plotfile may be specified with the /P option if it is inconvenient to make it the first parameter. If a given option is entered more than once, only the last entry is used. And if an option is invalid (but not incorrect), it is ignored. This lets you set up a batch file with your preferred options but override them as desired. For example, create PHP.BAT with the line: PRINTGL /FL /M1 /P %1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8 %9 Then PHP can be called just like PRINTGL but it defaults to HP LaserJet format with magnification 1. '-' may be used instead of '/' to prefix the options. If you do not enter any parameters or if any parameter is incorrect, PrintGL displays its help screen. Below [ and ] enclose optional suboptions and │ separates mutually exclusive suboptions. The options and suboptions may be in any order except that multiple numeric suboptions are ordered. "c" refers to a suboption character, "x" and "y" to suboption floating point numbers, "i" and "j" to suboption integers, and "f" to a DOS file or device name. For integer input, floating point numbers are accepted and rounded to an integer. If an option has multiple numeric suboptions, these may be separated with commas or blanks. ******************************************************************** It is very important to choose the right output format (/F option). It is likely that the default output format will work on your printer, but it is equally likely that it will not produce optimal results. Please look carefully at the entire list of output formats before choosing one, and do not assume that because a format works that it is the best one to use. ******************************************************************** g-5 /A - LOCATION OPTION /A[O][x,y] - location - default /A The A option determines the location of the plot in the printer window, by specifying a point on the plot that is to be aligned with a point in the printer window. The point on the plot is normally its center, but you can specify a point with x,y in inches from the plot's origin. The point in the printer window is normally the center, but O says to make it the origin. The default /A puts the center of the plot at the center of the printer window. When PrintGL is finding the center of a plot, the entire rectangle defined by any IW command is included in the overall size of the plot. /C - PEN COLOR OPTION /Cc.. - color - default /CL The C option specifies the color of each of the eight pens. The colors are B for blue, C for cyan, G for green, L for black, M for magenta, R for red, and Y for yellow. Unspecified pens use the last specified color (/CRGB is the same as /CRGBBBBBB). If the output format does not allow color then this option is ignored. The following output formats handle colors: /FB bit map /FE EGA /FN Epson 9 pin /FP HP PaintJet /FT Epson 24 pin /FV VGA /FW alternate VGA Color may be emulated on black only printers with shading (/S option). /D - OUTPUT DESTINATION OPTION /Df - destination - default /D1 The D option specifies the output printer port, device, or file. 1, 2, or 3 causes PrintGL to use the BIOS printer routines, bypassing DOS. This is normally faster than specifying the DOS device (LPT1, LPT2, LPT3), but it may cause problems with print spoolers or multitasking systems. Display output can only go to the screen and causes this option to be ignored. g-6 /F - OUTPUT FORMAT OPTION /Fc[+│-│*│i,j] - output format - default /FG The F option specifies which output format to use. The format is chosen with a device character and a resolution modifier (-, +, *). *, +, and - are allowed even where they have no affect. For bit maps you can choose a specific resolution in dots per inch. Resolutions here are given in horizontal x vertical dots/inch. To return to DOS from a displayed plot, press Esc. /F1 IBM Proprinter ..................................... 120x72 /F1+ IBM Proprinter (2 pass) 120x144 /F2 IBM Quietwriter 2 .................................. 240x240 /F3 IBM Quietwriter 3 240x240 /F4- IBM LaserPrinter ................................... 150x150 /F4 IBM LaserPrinter 300x300 /F5 IBM Proprinter X24 compatible printers ............. 180x180 /F5+ IBM Proprinter X24 compatible printers (2 pass) 360x180 /F6 IBM Proprinter X24 ................................. 180x182 /F6+ IBM Proprinter X24 (2 pass) 360x182 /FB bit map ............................................ 100x100 /FBi,j bit map ixj /FC CGA display ......................................... 62x25 /FE 128K EGA color display 62x45 /FH Hercules graphics card display ...................... 70x45 /FL- HP LaserJet compatible printers 150x150 /FL HP LaserJet compatible printers .................... 300x300 /FM 128K EGA monochrome display 62x45 /FN Epson 9 pin compatible printers .................... 120x72 /FN+ Epson 9 pin compatible printers (3 pass) 120x216 /FN* Epson 9 pin compatible printers (6 pass) ........... 240x216 /FP HP PaintJet 180x180 /FT Epson 24 pin compatible printers ................... 180x180 /FT+ Epson 24 pin compatible printers (2 pass) 360x180 /FT* Epson 24 pin compatible printers (4 pass) .......... 360x360 /FV VGA display 62x62 /FV+ enhanced VGA display 720x540 mode ................... 70x70 /FV* enhanced VGA display 800x600 mode 78x78 /FW VGA display ......................................... 62x62 /FW+ alternate enhanced VGA display 800x600 mode 78x78 /I - SCALING POINT LOCATION OPTION /IA│R│W[N] - IP point location - default /IA The I option sets the initial scaling points (P1, P2 - the scaling points may be set in the HP-GL file with the IP command). A (absolute) sets the points to 250,279 and 10250,7479 (the same as an HP 7470). R fits P1 and P2 to the plot window with at least .25 inch margins and an x/y ratio of 10/7.2 (the same ratio as the HP 7470). W fits P1 and P2 to the plot window with a .25 inch margin. N makes the margin 0 for R or W and is ignored with A. g-7 /L - PAGE LAYOUT OPTION /L[B][F][R][x,y[,x,y]] - page layout - default depends on printer The L option defines the page layout. B boxes the plot at the hard clip limits using pen 8. This generally increases the amount of data sent to a printer, but not bit maps or displays. F causes a form feed after the plot. This is ignored for bit maps and display output. R causes reverse video (black on white) on one color display plots and bit maps and is otherwise ignored. The first optional x and y are the plot width and height in inches rounded to .01. These define the hard clip limits. These values are not checked against your printer's capabilities. If you specify a page layout larger than the output device can handle, the results are unknown. You may need to reset your printer's margins, maximum line length, or page length to get large plots. The size needed for a given width and height exceeds x and y by 8 pels to allow for line widths. The second optional x and y are the left and top margins, measured from the printer's left and top margins to the hard clip limits. The left margin is rounded to .01 inch. The top margin is rounded to a 1/6 inch and line feeds (assumed to be 1/6 inch) are used to position the paper. The margins are subject to printer resolution and efficiency considerations, and may not be exact. Margins are ignored for display output and bit maps. Each printer has a default page layout. The default width and height are 7.53x10.14 for printers and bit maps and 10.14x7.53 for displays. The margins are printer specific to compensate for different default margins. In evaluating user options, PrintGL processes each option and when finished reprocesses the default page layout for the last chosen printer and then reprocesses the last user /L option. This procedure gives good default values so that your /L option can change the letter or size suboptions and still have good margins. /M - MAGNIFICATION OPTION /M[F]x - magnification - default /MF.9 The M option specifies the magnification. F fits the plot to the printer window size. The default is /MF.9 which makes the plot 90% of the largest size that will fit in the printer window. g-8 /N - PAGE NUMBER OPTION /N[i] - page number - default /N Ni says to print only page i of the plotfile. If you do not specify i then all pages in the plot will be printed (this is the default). /O - ORIGIN AND ORIENTATION OPTION /O1│2│3│4[L] - origin, orientation - default /O1 or /O2 The O options sets the printer's origin and orientation. The origin is one of four corners numbered 1..4 for upper left, lower left, lower right, and upper right. The L suboption specifies a left handed coordinate system (this should never be needed). 1 is the default origin for printers and matches the plotter's coordinate system. 2 is the default origin for displays which also matches the plotter's coordinates due to the reversed width/height ratio. /P - PLOTFILE OPTION /Pf - plotfile - no default The plotfile may be specified as the first parameter without any prefix, or it may be specified anywhere in the option list with the /P prefix. /S - PEN SHADING OPTION /Sc.. - pen shading patterns - default /S0 This option assigns a shading pattern to each pen. Unspecified pens use the last specified shade. The shade values are 0..7. 0 is the default solid line. 1..4 are 1 dot patterns (75%, 50%, 25%, 12.5%) and need line widths of at least three to give good looking lines. 5..7 are 2x2 dot patterns (75%, 50%, 25%) and need line widths of at least five to give good looking lines. Some printers may wash out shading because they have a dot size that is large relative to the dot spacing. This is especially true with dot matrix printers in multipass modes. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 █▀█▀█▀█▀ ▀▄▀▄▀▄▀▄ ▀ ▀ ▀ ▀ ▀ ▀ ████████ ██ ██ ██ ██ █▀█▀█▀█▀ ▀▄▀▄▀▄▀▄ ▀ ▀ ▀ ▀ ▀ ▀ ██ ██ ██ ██ █▀█▀█▀█▀ ▀▄▀▄▀▄▀▄ ▀ ▀ ▀ ▀ ▀ ▀ ████████ ██ ██ ██ ██ █▀█▀█▀█▀ ▀▄▀▄▀▄▀▄ ▀ ▀ ▀ ▀ ▀ ▀ ██ ██ ██ ██ /T - TEMPORARY FILE OPTION /Tf - temporary file - default /TPRINTGL.TMP PrintGL uses a temporary file when it does not have enough memory to handle a plotfile. It does not use extended or expanded memory so you can best utilize this memory by putting the temporary file on a RAM disk in the extra memory. If you have 640K and average size plotfiles then it is likely that PrintGL will never use a temporary file. g-9 /W - PEN WIDTH OPTION /Wc.. - pen widths - default /WA The W option assigns a line width to each pen (1..8). Each width may be 1..8 pels or A..H for the default width of the selected output format plus 0..7 (maximum 8). Unassigned pens use the last assigned width. The default line width is 1 for all output formats except 240 and 300 dpi printers which have a default line width of 2. /Y - Y/D SWITCH SETTING OPTION /YD│Y - Y/D switch setting - default /YD The Y option sets the plotter's rear panel Y/D switch to D or Y. Y starts with the plotter off and responds to esc.(, esc.Y, esc.), and esc.Z commands. D starts with the plotter on and ignores these commands. /Z - CHORD ANGLE OPTION /Zi,j - default and minimum chord angle - default /Z15,5 The HP 7470 defaults to a chord angle of 5 and has no minimum. Because PrintGL stores each chord in a circle in its internal database, this can be very time consuming. And because of the low resolution of printers it does not produce a corresponding improvement in print quality. The Z option specifies the default and minimum chord angles. The default is /Z15,5. For better emulation use /Z5,0. g-10 EPSON 9 PIN PRINTERS /FN covers a wide range of 9 pin dot matrix printers. You need a cyan/magenta/yellow ribbon to get color prints. /FN+ uses 1/216 indexing and /FN* uses 1/216 indexing and 1/240 graphics. The IBM 9 pin Proprinters do not do 1/216 indexing and do not correctly handle 1/240 graphics commands. /FP is a special driver for Proprinters. EPSON 24 PIN PRINTERS /FT covers the entire line of Epson LQ printers and many compatible printers (NEC, Panasonic, etc.). You need a cyan/magenta/yellow ribbon to get color prints. /FT+ uses 1/360 graphics mode. /FT* uses 1/360 graphics mode and 1/360 indexing and resets the printer's line feed distance to 1/6 inch on completion. These drivers will not work with IBM Proprinter X24s in alternate graphics mode because they use the absolute tab command. HP LASERJET /FL works with any LaserJet or DeskJet. This driver assumes that your printer is in portrait mode. At 300 dpi (the default), if you have just 512K in a LaserJet then your plot can cover about half the area of the page. 1.5M is sufficient for a full page of graphics. At 150 dpi (/FL-) 512K handles a full page. (All DeskJets can handle a full page of graphics at 300 dpi.) /FL- defaults to a page height of 10.11 inch instead of 10.14 inch, so that plots fit on a page without changing margins. HP PAINTJET /FP should work with any 180 dpi HP-PCL printer, including the HP Rugged Writer, but this has not been tested. g-11 IBM LASERPRINTER /F6 drives the LaserPrinter in native mode. /FL will work if the LaserPrinter is in HP LaserJet mode. At 300 dpi (the default), if you have just 512K in your LaserPrinter then your plot can cover about half of the page. 1.5M is sufficient for a full page of graphics. At 150 dpi (/F6-) 512K handles a full page. IBM PROPRINTER The /FP driver is for all 9 pin Proprinters. The high resolution driver (/FP+) uses 1/144 inch indexing and it does not work with Epson 9 pin compatible printers that have 1/216 inch indexing. There is no /FP* resolution, which would be 240x144, because Proprinters do not handle 1/240 graphics correctly. IBM PROPRINTER X24 The /F5 driver covers all Proprinter X24s. These printers can use the X24 compatible driver (/F4), but because they do 1/144 indexing, the print will have horizontal white streaks every 2/3 inch. The /F5 drivers compensate for the indexing by defining the vertical resolution as 182 dots per inch and indexing 19/144 inch per line. To work properly the printer must be on a 1/144 boundary when the graphics are printed. If you keep the line feed distance a multiple of 1/144 (1/6, 1/8, 1/9) then this will always be the case. Proprinter X24 and XL24 are very slow with graphics, making many passes per line. This limitation cannot be overcome with software (to the best of my knowledge). The X24E and XL24E are significantly faster, and are much preferred to the original X24s. IBM PROPRINTER X24 COMPATIBLE PRINTERS, IBM QUICKWRITER The IBM Quickwriter is a Proprinter X24 compatible printer except that it does 1/180 indexing. This is probably the case with most Proprinter X24 compatible printers. /F4 is the correct driver to use for such printers. /F5 (the Proprinter X24 driver) is not recommended. IBM QUIETWRITER 2 AND 3 The Quietwriter drivers reset the line feed distance to 1/6 inch upon completion. g-12 CGA DISPLAY The CGA driver (/FC) does not give color. The CGA card has no graphics mode that supports the 7 colors used by PrintGL. EGA DISPLAY The EGA drivers (/FE, /FM) require a 128K or 256K EGA. If you have a 64K EGA, the CGA (/FC) driver will work. /FM is for an EGA card with a digital monochrome monitor attached. If your display adaptor supports Hercules modes, /FH will give better resolution. HERCULES DISPLAY /FH supports the Hercules monochrome graphics card. There is no support for the Hercules InColor card. MCGA DISPLAY /FV will work with an MCGA if you do not use color. VGA DISPLAY The /FV+ output format requires a VGA card that supports 720x540 mode. The /FV* output format requires a VGA card and multisync monitor that support 800x600 mode. You may need to run a special driver that is supplied with the card to get these modes. PrintGL sets up the screen by setting BIOS display modes hex 63 and hex 64. Your VGA card must use these modes to work with /FV+ and /FV*. /FW+ is the same as /FV* except that it uses BIOS display mode hex 58 to set 800x600 mode. This works with Paradise enhanced VGA cards with multisync monitors. /FW is identical to /FV. BIT MAPS Color bit maps are two pels per byte. Each pel nibble = 1*blue + 2*green + 4*red + 8*intensity. The intensity is 0 for black and 1 otherwise. The background is 15 - white, which is not a user selectable color. /CL (default) bit maps are 8 pels/byte with 1 meaning black and 0 background. This may be reversed with the R suboption of the /L option. The map size is the size specified by the L option plus 8 pels in each direction to give room for line widths of up to 8 pels. g-13 PLOTFILE SPECIFICS In reading a plotfile, PrintGL ignores carriage returns, line feeds, and nulls except where they may be valid characters (LB, SM, DT, esc.), and ASCII EOF (dec 26) is interpreted as an end of file mark. PrintGL's HP-GL specification is taken from the HP 7470 programming manual. PrintGL supports this HP-GL subset except for digitize commands, output commands, the error mask command, and most device control commands (plotter on and off are supported). Supported commands are listed here. Commands that are not supported are ignored. Two extensions are also supported. Form feed commands are allowed and 8 pens are allowed instead of 2. To take advantage of the this, it may be useful to use a 7475 (6 pens) or 7550 (eight pens and form feeds) driver to create your plotfile. AA x,y,aa[,ca] arc absolute AF new page (extension) AR x,y,aa[,ca] arc relative CA [0/1/2/3/4] designate alternate character set CI r[,ca] circle CP [sp,ln] character plot CS [0/1/2/3/4] designate standard character set DF set default values DI [run,rise] absolute direction DR [run,rise] relative direction DTt define label terminator IN initialize IP [p1x,p1y[,p2x,p2y]] input p1 and p2 IW xll,yll,xur,yur input window LB...text...t label LT [pn,pl] designate line type and length PA [x,y] [,x,y] ... plot absolute PD [x,y] [,x,y] ... pen down PG [i] new page (extension) PR [x,y] [,x,y] ... plot relative PU [x,y] [,x,y] ... pen up SA select alternate character set SC xmin,xmax,ymin,ymax scale SI [width,height] absolute character size SL [tan a] character slant SM[c] symbol mode SP [0/1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8] select pen (2..8 extension) SR [width,height] relative character size SS select standard character set TL [[tp],tn] tick length UC [[pc,]dx,dy] [[,pc],dx,dy] ... user defined character XT x-axis tick YT y-axis tick esc.( plotter on (only with /YY) esc.Y plotter on (only with /YY) esc.) plotter off (only with /YY) esc.Z plotter off (only with /YY) g-14 LINE TYPE PATTERNS Below are PrintGL's line type patterns. They are close to, but not identical to HP's. Line type patterns are dynamically limited to a minimum length of 20 pels. 0 at endpoints only 1 ─ ─ ─ ─ 2 ───── ───── ───── ───── 3 ──────── ──────── ──────── ──────── 4 ─────── ─ ─────── ─ ─────── ─ ─────── ─ 5 ────── ── ────── ── ────── ── ────── ── 6 ───── ─ ─ ───── ─ ─ ───── ─ ─ ───── ─ ─ default ──────────────────────────────────────── Note that line type is specified in an HP-GL plotfile with the LT command - it is not a property of the pen that is being used to draw the line. You cannot specify that a certain pen should use a specific line type. (Color, shading, and width are pen properties and can be assigned to pens.) g-15 COMPATIBILITY AND TECHNICAL INFORMATION PrintGL will run on any IBM compatible MS-DOS computer. It will work in a region as small as 80K but may need more memory for high resolution or wide prints. 104K should suffice for the worst case black/white prints - 13.2 inches wide, 360x360 dpi. Color output requires an additional 32K or more for high resolution / wide prints. 184K is needed for the worst case. A larger region may make things go faster by allowing larger buffers and averting the use of a spill file. By default PrintGL uses the BIOS printer interrupt to send data to a printer. If a file or device is specified for output then DOS 2.0 file handling is used instead. PrintGL uses DOS 2.0 file handling for all disk input and output. Screen messages are done with DOS, graphics screen modes (except Hercules) are set up with BIOS, and graphics screen updates are done by writing directly to the display buffer. Keyboard handling is done via BIOS. PrintGL takes the BIOS break interrupt (hex 1B) and the DOS critical error interrupt (hex 24) in addition to those taken by the Turbo Pascal 5.5 startup code. PrintGL was compiled with Borland's Turbo Pascal 5.5. WHAT TO DO IF YOU HAVE PROBLEMS If you have problems with PrintGL or questions about it, there are two ways to get in touch with me. First is my support bulletin board. Prepare a file with the details of your problem. Call the bulletin board at 606-268-0577 (1200/2400,N,8,1 24 hours/day) and upload your file. It will be assigned a question number - remember this number. I will prepare an answer file, hopefully within 48 hours. Call the bulletin board and download the corresponding answer file to get your answer. All question and answer files are public. You can also mail questions on disk to me (360K, 720K, or 1.44M diskettes only - I cannot read 1.2M diskettes). Please include return postage. Send the diskette to: Cary Ravitz P. O. Box 25068 Lexington, KY 40524-5068 I must have specific details. Do not assume that I know what you are trying to do.