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The Atari Compendium (Toad Computers) (1994).iso
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gdos_faq.zoo
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gdos_faq.txt
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1994-04-02
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57KB
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1,494 lines
Everything you wanted to know about GDOS drivers
(but were afraid to ask)*
Version 1.9
Gerd Castan **
3.3.1994
________________________________
* (c) by Woody Allen ;-)
** English translation by Stefan Damerau (stefan_damerau@sl.maus.de)
German version posted in de.comp.sys.st und maus.gui.gem.
English version posten in comp.sys.atari.st
Contents
1 Technical Info
2 Introduction
3 Motivation
4 Changes
5 VDI Drivers
5.1 Ink Printers
5.2 9pin drivers
5.3 24pin drivers
5.4 Laser drivers
5.5 Atari laser drivers
5.6 Screen drivers
5.6.1 LineA
5.6.2 Setscreen & Getscreen
5.6.3 NVDI and WARP 9
5.7 Other drivers
5.7.1 Memory drivers
5.7.2 Plotter drivers
5.8 What's missing
6 Errors
7 Fonts
7.1 General
7.2 Bitmap fonts
7.3 Vector fonts
8 printer
8.1 List of availability
9 Programs
10 Utilities
10.1 fontfix
10.2 Outline Fonts
10.3 Printer Driver
10.4 ASSIGN
10.5 FONTCHK
10.6 FONTCNV
10.7 GEMFont
10.8 FontMonger
10.9 Font ID
11 Distribution
11.1 Atari
11.2 BELA
11.3 FontGDOS
11.4 Language
11.5 Internet
11.6 Working Title
11.7 Speedo drivers
11.8 Speedo 4.2
11.9 COMPO
11.10 IMG-0300
11.11 Others
11.12 FTP
12 Source
13 Tips'n Tricks
13.1 Pixeltrash at printing, advice for users
13.2 NEC P6+
14 Tips'n Tricks for coders
14.1 Fontsize and Pixelsize
15 Addresses
16 Miscellaneous
16.1 Critics
16.1.1 Critics to the author
16.1.2 Critics to the translator
16.2 Praise
16.3 For my support
16.4 Trademarks
17 Appendix
17.1 Literature
1 Technical Info
My email address will change more than once next time. Due to this reason I
have an alias, forwarding my mail to my actual location - and if it's in
the MAUS Net: G.Castan@physik.uni-stuttgart.de
For easy location of this document at servers and mailboxes, I ask for
using the following name(s) and saving the ascii AND TeX versions:
FILENAME=
gdosi19e (english version)
gdosinf19e (when using UNIX) CR+LF should be used when saving at
UNIX-Fileservers too, not just LF
2 Introduction
Actually I'm writing a program, that makes his print out via GDOS. Looking
for printer drivers I faced the problem, that many times no documentation is
included to the drivers.
Otherwise it may happen that there are different drivers with the same name.
Here I have briefly collected my experiences with printer drivers.
This collection doesn't generally want to describe coders how to use
printer drivers (except to problems not mentioned in literature). And you
wont find information about the concept or how to install printer drivers.
To get this refer to the list at the end of this FAQ.
What I want to exclaim here is more information about the several drivers:
o Where are the drivers available?
o How to distinguish them?
o What are the problem with them?
o Which drivers can be used for certain printers?
If anybody has more experience or questions, please write me. I will face
the work to update this FAQ.
Credits:
Kay Prisille (MIGRAPH-Products, Calligrapher lite)
Julian Reschke (IMG-0???)
Volker Ritzhaupt
Jⁿrgen Voorgang (Working Title - Products)
Herwig Schelauske (Installation of GDOS, Name-conventions)
Normen Kowalewski (Font-GDOS)
Erik Dick (SpeedoGDOS)
Patrick Dubbrow
Ulrich Rossgoderer (WYSIWYG)
Stefan Hintz (CHARLY IMAGE)
Ulli 'Huhu' Ramps, Christian Nieber (Speedo 4.2)
Mickey Boyd (reviewing parts of the translation)
Gerd Castan.
3 Motivation
With GDOS it took me 2 hours of coding, to get the screen-output to the
printer in maximum quality. And (almost) with no extra work I get output to
printers I even don't know.
If there's anybody who wants to write a program with printing options, he
should better care of the main job of the programm.
Nobody wants to pay for printer drivers if there's another program that
didn't take the coder extra work with such stuff making this program less
expensive (and surely better).
The User has - besides the lower price - another advantage. If he uses
several programs he needs place for the driver and the fonts only one time on
the disc.
SpeedoGDOS is available from Atari shops (Atari Competence Center in Germany)
now.
The (qualified) feedback to my FAQ has - compared to last autumn - raised
remarkable. Due to Speedo the interest in GDOS coming from the coders seems
to be bigger.
4 Changes
New chapters/infos are marked with '+', changed ones with '*'. Smaller
changes aren't marked.
+ Pegasus, Riemann II, CHARLY IMAGE, rho-Analyse
+ SLM_HS.SYS
+ Speedo 4.2 (Drivers)
+ Font-ID
* Phonenumbers in ISO style
* Screendrivers: bitmap-fonts
* WARP 9
* Monoklin
* Bitmap fonts
* Note to ink printers
5 VDI-Drivers
In this table I have listed distributor, errors and useable fonts.
5.1 Ink Printers
________________________________________________________________________
| Name |Date |Length |Distributor |Errors | Others | Fonts |
|___________|_________|_______|____________|_1_|_2_|________|__________|
| BJ10E |20.11.90 | 45917 | WT | | | |NC |
| BJ10 |20.11.85 | 45919 | CL | | | |NC |
| BJ10 |28.08.91 | 45660 | BELA | | | |NC |
| BJ10 |27.01.92 | 59715 | FontGDOS,I | | n | |NC, OTL |
| BJ10 |28.01.93 | 61428 | Speedo | | n | |NC, SPD |
| BJ10 |02.07.93 | 63496 | Speedo 4.2 | | n | |NC, SPD |
| HP_LJET |22.02.89 | 45512 | BELA | | | p.g. | LS |
| HP_LASER |25.09.89 | 36928 | Atari,I | | | |LS |
| LASERJET |06.03.91 | 54517 | Atari | | | |LS |
| LASERJET |27.01.92 | 60194 | FontGDOS,I | | n | |LS, OTL |
| LASERJET |28.01.93 | 61907 | Speedo | | n | |LS, SPD |
| LASERJET |02.07.93 | 64408 | Speedo 4.2 | | n | |LS, SPD |
| HPL150 |12.04.86 | 51541 | wt | | |150dpi | LL |
| HPL300 |24.04.86 | 51541 | CL,wt | | | |LS |
| DESKJET |13.05.92 | 45637 | BELA | | | p. |LS? |
| DESKJET |14.05.91 | 46040 | CL,WT | | | p. |300x600 |
| DESKJET |06.03.91 | 54285 | Atari,I | | | |LS? |
| DESKJET5 |14.05.91 | 46040 | CL,WT | | | delta |LS |
| DJ5 |27.01.92 | 60600 | FontGDOS,I | | n | |OTL |
| DJ5 |28.01.93 | 62251 | Speedo | | n | |SPD |
| DJ5 |02.07.93 | 64319 | Speedo 4.2 | | n | |SPD |
| MT90 |21.12.90 | 44881 | BELA | | |180dpi | SP |
| PAINTJET |27.01.92 | 60005 | FontGDOS | | n | |SP, OTL |
| PAINTJET |28.01.93 | 61648 | Speedo | | n | |SP, SPD |
| PAINTJET |02.07.93 | 63642 | Speedo 4.2 | | n | |SP, SPD |
| PAINTJET |14.08.92 | 60173 | I | | | |SP, OTL |
|_PAINTJET__|13.10.91_|_45934_|_WT_________|___|___|________|SP________|
Note: The drivers named HP_LJET and DESKJET can be used for (HP-compatible)
ink and laser printers. The difference is in the transfer to the printer:
Packed (p.) or not packed (n.p.). 'Delta' means that the data is delta
packed.
PAINTJET is a color driver with 8 colors.
MT90 is made by Patrick Dubbrow.
Using ink drivers produces a problem with bitmap fonts. Using 300dpi all is ok.
But 360dpi fonts are optimised for best efforts with pin printers having thick
pins. Using ink printers makes the fonts look much too thin.
Solution: either use 300 [ 600, 1200 :-) ] or exclusively use vectorfonts
5.2 9pin-drivers
_____________________