This one question has me baffled; How can I clear the internal Buffer on a IIGS while printing out AppleWorks Documents.
Say I'm printing a long letter and I noticed a mistake within the first few lines of printing. Once AppleWorks comes back to the Printer Options Menu, the printer is still running.
If I turn the printer off, it just skips a few lines and continues printing. Is there any way from the Key Board to clear the internal Buffer of the IIGS.
Please leave E-mail or respond here. Thanks
Jeffs
Subj: Re: IIGS INTERNAL BUFFER 88-12-24 12:50:30 EST
From: Guy Rice
Hehe! I do that a LOT! You'd think I'd learn to spot those mistakes before I hit OA-P, but no dice...
However, turning the printer off has always worked for me. Make sure you leave it off long enough for the document to finish printing though - just like on the //c, if no printer is connected, the IIgs will continue to print anyway. I believe Beagle Bros has noted that what's actually occuring is your text is being beamed out into deep space (see the Pro-Byter manual, page 52 if ya don't believe me). At any rate, leave the printer off while you go back and fix the mistake. Save the changes. After you're done with all that, hopefully the IIgs will be done beaming your document to Tau Ceti, and you can try again...
GTR
Subj: Re: AppleTalk & Printer Off 88-12-31 14:51:45 EST
From: Coach101
I do not have a complete set of test conditions but, if you turn
the printer off, and your printer (Imagewriter II in my case) is
connected via the AppleTalk gambit, you will sometimes (if not
always) hose over the II-GS's AppleTalk firmware/software; if
this happens what you will get in a situation wherein all output
is beamed to the bit-bucket until you either re-boot the machine
(command-control-reset on aII-GS) or make a trip to the AppleTalk
utilities NAMER/CHOOSER.
Subj: Re: IIGS INTERNAL BUFFER 89-01-29 23:03:40 EST
From: Matt DTS
Of course, the rather obvious solution of "Don't turn buffering on when printing from AppleWorks" might work as well.
--Matt
Subj: Printer and interface drivers 89-03-13 00:04:49 EST
From: User1924 Msgs: 7 (89-03-19)
The GS/OS DRIVER folder has drivers for the EPSON PRINTER and a PARALLEL INTERFACE CARD. This combintaion does not work with an EPSON and an APPLE PARALLEL INTERFACE CARD. One developer I spoke with, asked APPLE and the fellow that wrote the drivers responded that the problem is that the drivers have to be written for each possible combination. Incredibly , APPLE did not write the PARALLEL driver to work with its own card. Anyone know of a driver available that will work with the APPLE card? Thanks.
Subj: Re: Printer and interface driver 89-03-13 01:04:06 EST
From: Matt DTS
This doesn't bite anyone harder than me at home, because there's an Apple Parallel Card hooked to my IIgs (I never did buy an ImageWriter II). I can't print from any IIgs programs. The only choice I have is to find someone with an IW II (or take it to work and print it over the LaserWriter; usually just as inconvenient for me).
The original name of the driver more accurately reflected those parallel cards it works with (GraphiCard, Grappler, etc.), but there were legal problems with that. I'm hoping a future version of the driver will address the problem.
Meanwhile, if you'd like to tackle it yourself, you can find the information to do so in Apple IIgs Technical Note #36. And if you do write one, send it to me. I haven't had time.
--Matt
Subj: parallel card driver? 89-03-14 03:19:51 EST
From: Dave Lyons
If someone can provide me with technical info on the Apple parallel card, I'll see about writing a driver for it. Shouldn't be that big a deal. Is the card a STA $C090 / BIT $C1C1 deal, like Pascal supports?
Subj: Re: Printer and interface driver 89-03-14 21:00:11 EST
From: AFA Parik
Doesn't AW GS come with a TON of drivers (I don't know, don't have the disks laying around handy right now...)
Subj: Re: Printer and interface driver 89-03-15 22:06:05 EST
From: DennisDoms
Dave - yep; that's the one (Apple Pascal supports it even though it doesn't follow Pascal 1.1. protocol, via a special exception). If you need more info, I may have an extra parallel card manual around here.
What would be neat is a generic driver for this type of parallel card, and one for the Pascal 1.1 protocol. That should cover a _lot_ of peripheral cards.
Subj: Re: Printer and interface driver 89-03-19 12:13:55 EST
From: User1924
To Dave L. and Dennis D.
I put a note in the Hardware Forum under a Printer and Interface Problem Folder about the history of the Apple cards and their differences.
The 1981 PIC had seven dip switches of which one selected alternate 256 byte code in a 512 byte rom. The choice is between the _CENTRONICS_ and the _PARALLEL INTERFACE_ old blocks. The former gives auto LF with CR, while the latter did not.
This card used the Pascal 1.1 Firmware Protocol. I have all of the technical data, including the firmware code and theory of operation, which a kind heart at APPLE sent me.
It would be very generous if you could alter the driver in the GS/OS Driver folder (the parallel interface one) so that it would work with the APPLE PIC. It should be noted that this card mimics (or the other way around) the EPSON APL interface card.
I would imagine that there is an enormous group of users out here who would be most grateful for your help in this regard.
I would be happy to send you a complete copy of the documentation which I have. I think it is everything you would need. How would I do that if you are willing to look into this?
Thanks. David in Chicago.
Subj: Re: Printer and interface driver 89-03-19 12:35:22 EST
From: User1924
P.S. To: Matt DTS-
The Apple IIgs Technical Note #36, which you made reference to concerns the specs for a _Printer PORT Driver_.
Technical Note #_35_ is the specs for a IIgs _PRINTER Driver_.
Thanks. David in Chicago.
Subj: Epson Printer W/GS/OS 5.0 89-08-07 00:39:27 EST
From: FeinDavid Msgs: 8 (89-10-04)
I have an Epson RX-80, with a Orange Micro Grappler Plus Parallel Printer Interface, and I cannot get GS/OS 5.0 to print for me. Not to mention the fact that I couldn't get any ProDOS 16 system disk to print. My Epson is suped up with Dresselhaus Computer Products LetterWriter NLQ upgrade chip, and a Wizard 64K Printer Buffer. My GS has the Grappler in slot one, a Sonic Blaster in slot two, a Sider interface in slot 7, and an AST Vision Plus card in slot six. Does anybody have any idea on what could be the problem... When I go to print, the computer says preparing data, my printer begins to print, then the computer starts to beep continually.... I believe that it has broken into monitor behind the Super-Hires screen... But Ctrl-T doesn't return me to the text screen. Maybe the dip switches? Anybody know what they should be set to on my card? On the printer? Has anybody else had the same problem? I am beginning to think I should go back to the Epson drivers on Paintworks Plus/Gold.
Subj: Re: Epson Printer W/GS/OS 5.0 89-08-07 22:30:27 EST
From: Montagne
Actually, all the printer drivers are not GS/OS drivers. They are a component of the print tools shipping on the System 5.0 disk.
Don't have any information on the problem you are experiencing, however, I will forward your bug report to the tools group for investigation. I'll get back to you if I find anything out.
Ray (GS/OS Team)
Subj: Re: Epson Printer W/GS/OS 5.0 89-08-10 21:08:22 EST
From: Matt DTS
Make sure you installed the "Epson" script from the 5.0 Installer; there are new Epson printer and Parallel Card port drivers that should work, but won't if mismatched.
Use the "DirectConnect" CDev in the Control Panel NDA to select the printer and port to print through.
--Matt
Subj: Re: Epson Printer W/GS/OS 5.0 89-08-11 02:59:13 EST
From: FeinDavid
Matt,
I did install the Epson Drivers with the installer, and it still doesn't work... it crashes... as a matter of fact, the only way I have been able to print from P16 at all is with Paintworks Gold and their Epson drivers.... However, they don't work with 5.0.
Subj: Re: Epson Printer W/GS/OS 5.0 89-08-11 20:55:01 EST
From: Matt DTS
I don't know what to tell you; the same configuration works for us here at Apple.
--Matt
Subj: Re: Epson Printer W/GS/OS 5.0 89-08-12 03:01:50 EST
From: FeinDavid
Could you tell me exactly what your dip switches are set to on the grappler, and are you using an RX-80?
Subj: The Epson Printer Driver 89-08-28 00:03:36 EST
From: Jump Long
The Epson printer driver included with Apple IIGS System Software won't work on Epson RX series printers. The driver uses FX specific control codes to move the print head around. If you have a printer (Epson or something else) that supports ALL of the FX printer control codes, it will probably work fine with the Epson driver.
-JML
Subj: Re: Epson Printer W/GS/OS 5.0 89-10-04 19:08:32 EST
From: GuS Grafix
Jim,
Just saw this message here after tearing my hair out trying to get my Epson MX-100 with Graftrax+ to work with either an Epson APL parallel card OR a Grappler C/Mac/GS interface--latter in either Epson MX mode or in IW Emulation mode. Son't know enough about Epson control codes, so don't know if Epson MX series is RX-compatible. Do you know offhand if 5.0 supports the Epson MX series?
Marian
Subj: New Printer Drivers? 89-08-07 00:42:29 EST
From: FeinDavid Msgs: 14 (89-10-28)
When are we going to see some new printer drivers? I want to get a 300 dpi 24 or more pin printer for my GS, but it seems that I will not be able to utilize the capibilities of the printer until Apple or someone writes some drivers.... I personally hate the Imagewriter II, and want a better printer. I wouldn't mind a Laser Printer, but again, you are stuck buying Apple equipment. I want my GS to be compatible with the best equipment out there, not just what Apple dictates!!!
Subj: Re: New Printer Drivers? 89-08-08 00:08:21 EST
From: Gary51
Boy! I sure agry. I would settal for a real Imagwriter LQ Driver. I just can't understand Apple's neglect of the GS in the Printer aria. They stand to sell a lot of LQ's to GS owners if we could use it. Let's everyone let Apple know we wan't an LQ driver
Gary Antoine (Gary51)
Subj: Re: New Printer Drivers? 89-08-08 20:48:39 EST
From: A GibberFC
One Question I will ask at this point.....
What printer out there will not choke on the graphics stuff that the //gs and the Mac puts out????
One comes to mind here and it was released about 2 months ago...
It is called the HP Deskwriter... A Deskjet that has been engineered to work specifically with the Macintosh... Puts out great Graphics... but will not handle some of the Shadeing....
But when you say better equipment what the heck do you mean????
A Laserjet??? It is a text only printer.... A Panisonic... Again... Text only.... A toshiba.. a nec...
Please be more specific with your requests...... I am in the process of researching the possibility of building a Deskjet driver but I will have to work with HP and see if they will help write the specific font files that must be in the Mac's system folder over to a format that the //gs will handle...
The //gs will take any printer... The question is will that printer take what the //gs can send out. I have worked with the apple // for over 10 years... and the Mac for over 4 and my experience has shown that when you try to put a text printer into a graphic enviornment that they choke really badly...
at this moment in time... the only printers that I will recommend with the Mac are: Imagewriter- 9 pin workhorse... good for draft stuff, The Laserwriter //sc (only if the person insists on not having the NT and understands that it isn't postscript) the //nt for DTP, the NTX.. Last but not least and I mean this... the HP Deskwriter- for people who don't do much and want real good quality. The printer is rated at only 50 pages a day.. so it isn't meant to print for a long time......
If you will give more info... maybe one of us guys who enjoy developing drivers will work one out and release it.
AFC Gibber
Subj: Re: New Printer Drivers? 89-08-10 21:04:38 EST
From: Matt DTS
I'll address this from the Apple side.
We are working on an ImageWriter LQ native mode driver. We have said this for some time. However, we've also had lots of feedback on the general driver structure (particularly poor speed from the ImageWriter driver) and we are looking at changes that can be made to this driver (which would require even *more* data to be sent to the printer at higher resolution) before dumping something on the world.
We have also released the structure for Printer and Port (interface card) drivers, almost a year ago. Anyone who wishes to develop their own drivers has the tools to do so. Apple has provided drivers for its current printers (there is an ImageWriter LQ driver, but it doesn't do any better than the ImageWriter II) and looks to third parties to provide drivers for their printers. Apple II DTS will be happy to assist them in their efforts.
Matt Deatherage
Apple II Developer Technical Support
Subj: Re: New Printer Drivers? 89-08-10 22:27:06 EST
From: WRH
Matt
Keep up the good work that brought us V5.0 and get us the Imagewrite LQ driver ASAP.
Thanks, WRH
Subj: Printing (moved by topic police) 89-08-12 16:01:00 EST
From: AFL Dyfet
Subj: Printing with 5.0 89-08-12 01:25:35 EDT
From: Down South Msgs: 2 (89-08-12)
5.0 is fantastic with blinding speed and great new features... but it's made all of my printing programs useless because of the print chooser being located on the control panel. I own some good word processing programs but it looks like I'll just have to stick with 4.0 to use them at a somewhat faster speed than 3.0 Will there ever be a patch, rewrite, etc. of any known programs that print out? Down South
Subj: Printing (moved by topic police) 89-08-12 16:02:14 EST
From: AFL Dyfet
Subj: Hmmmm...... 89-08-12 12:52:04 EDT
From: Coach101
I have found that the system (RPM, I think) will easily forget what printer is to be used. Anytime I am going to use a "slot-based" output routine I will invoke the control panel from Finder prior to starting the program and "visit" the AppleTalk Cdev; all I do is bring up the AppleTalk Cdev and then close the control panel. When I do this, the slot based (RPM, Remote Print Manager) seems to then know how to communicate with my printer. If I do not do this, I run a very high risk of the program taking ten centuries to print all of its material to the bit bucket. Note, if you wait it out, your print function will complete but it can be a long wait (and of course you have nothing to show for your wait since the material went to the bit bucket).
Subj: Re: Panasonic 89-08-12 17:20:25 EST
From: Jumpn Jack
Someone earlier mentioned the Panasonic printer.....
Although I have not personally used it yet, my office just ordered the Panasonic KX-P1124 printer. It's a 24-pin printer with bit mapped graphics capabilities (360x360 dpi). It also includes 5 built-in fonts and a 6KB buffer. The printing speeds are 192cps in draft and 63cps in letter quality. The price tag is around $ 390. Now...if only I could use this with my IIgs :)
Subj: Re: Good fortune smiles! 89-08-23 01:46:04 EST
From: BurgerBill
I currently wrote a driver for the Canon PJ-1080A Color Ink Jet for my GS. It was a royal pain to write a driver using the information given by Apple DTS. :)
It's possible to write drivers for other printers. It would be a good idea for DTS to release a source code for a DUMMY printer driver such as the one released for the Disk Device Native Mode driver. That helped immensely in teaching me how to write a Hard Disk Native Mode Driver.
Bill
Subj: Re: New Printer Drivers? 89-08-23 21:51:35 EST
From: Montagne
Bill,
Were working on some new sample drivers that take advantage of new features in the operating system such as restartable drivers (so a driver does not have to be reloaded from disk after running a ProDOS8 application). Like the previous driver samples, they are not of a functional driver but are written to illustrate concepts in implementing a device driver. I also posted some source (although I can't remember where, but somewhere here in the OS forum within the last week) showing how the slot arbitration vector should be used by operating system drivers during the driver startup call. Anyway, when the new source model is complete, we may post it on BBS' so stay tuned.
Ray (GS/OS Team)
Subj: writing Printer Drivers 89-08-29 23:41:29 EST
From: Dave Lyons
Bill, I agree: It would be a very good idea for DTS to release a sample "shell" for a Print Manager printer driver. This is something we've thought of before & haven't had time to do so far.
In the meantime, feel free to point out the rought spots you discovered while writing your driver--Technical Notes get revised often, and we definitely want your comments on how they can be improved.
--Dave
Subj: Writing a driver 89-10-12 03:12:28 EST
From: Clayburn
I am interested in writing a printer driver for the Epson. I have the GS/OS reference (beta draft). It gives an example of a character driver. There are still a lot of things that I don't understand. Does the printer setup file (binary) that seems to go with every driver file contain the print record. What loads that into memory. What is its structure. What draws the dialog boxes in the print manager routines.
Is there any assembly language source code availible for a character driver that actually works. Is there some other source that says how to write a printer driver.
Any help would be appreciated.
Clay
Subj: writing a Printer Driver 89-10-23 02:28:59 EST
From: Dave Lyons
Clay, if you want to write a Printer Driver, you're on the wrong track: they're different from GS/OS device drivers.
You want the information in Apple IIgs Technical Notes #34 or #35, and the GS Toolbox folder would be a better place to continue the discussion.
--Dave
Subj: Re: Writing a printer driver 89-10-28 11:49:57 EST
