Accurancy of the printer emulation

[JoSch]

I'm at a point in the development of the printer emulation, at which I have to decide, where I will be going with the accurancy.

Please, consider the questions so that I know what you want.

Edited April 15, 2019 by JoSch

[_The Doctor__]

If I am using daisy dots, print shop, the news room, or typesetter... Not to mention some of the better word processors, the output has to be as good as the original printers if not better, any less is a mess.

[Mathy]

Hello JoSch

 

The result should be the same as on the printer selected from the menu. I've tried DaisyDot III with a Canon Bubblejet years ago. Where a nine pin NLQ printer would print round dots, the CBJ printed squares. The results were horrible!

 

Sincerely

 

Mathy

 

PS I voted "I don't care" on the second question because I don't understand the other two options and I had to select one.

Edited April 15, 2019 by Mathy

[JoSch]

PS I voted "I don't care" on the second question because I don't understand the other two options and I had to select one.

Some Atari printers and (certainly) all of the ESC/P printers have the ability to print proportional fonts.

We have tables that show the width of each of the characters like 'i' being 5 dots wide, while 'M' is 9 dots wide.

So, when the installed fonts are used, I don't have the same characters width.

Option 1 means, that when the used font has wider characters than the printer would have, e.g. the 'M' would overlap the 'i' for the sake of accurate spacings.

Option 2 means, we don't care about the spacing of the emulated printer. But then the printed line could be longer than it would be on the emulated printer, and so could wrap around.

 

Mathy, could I make the options clearer? Any questions left?

[Mathy]

Hello JoSch

 

Yes you did, thanks. Maybe you could make this user selectable?

 

Sincerely

 

Mathy

[JoSch]

Hello JoSch

 

Yes you did, thanks. Maybe you could make this user selectable?

 

Sincerely

 

Mathy

I probably could. But first, I have to refactor the whole printer emulation to native output interaction.

There are so many printer types to consider, that I have to think about how to present them.

[Mathy]

Hello JoSch

 

Maybe it's easier to send the data to a PDF file instead of a printer?

 

Sincerely

 

Mathy

[JoSch]

Hello JoSch

 

Maybe it's easier to send the data to a PDF file instead of a printer?

 

Sincerely

 

Mathy

There is a misunderstanding. I meant the types of emulated printers.

We have at least one plotter (Atari 1020), daisy wheels (Atari 1027, Atari XDM121), matrix printer with text only (Atari 825), matrix printers with text and graphics (eg. Atari 1029) and then the odd text only matrix printer with roll paper (Atari 820).

I hope, you get my drift

And don't get me started on all the ESC/P compatible printers.

[+DrVenkman]

To be honest, I think many - if not most - users really crave a graphics-capable emulated printer output. For raw text, we already have numerous options and honestly most people aren’t using Atari computers for actual word processing and final drafts of important documents.

 

But what we do not have access to is the ability to do dot matrix prints from graphics programs or things like The Print Shop. Being able to produce a PDF or SVG file or something from a generic 9-pin Epson compatible printer driver on the Atari would be awesome.

[JoSch]

To be honest, I think many - if not most - users really crave a graphics-capable emulated printer output. For raw text, we already have numerous options and honestly most people aren’t using Atari computers for actual word processing and final drafts of important documents.

 

But what we do not have access to is the ability to do dot matrix prints from graphics programs or things like The Print Shop. Being able to produce a PDF or SVG file or something from a generic 9-pin Epson compatible printer driver on the Atari would be awesome.

Yes, I can see that. But there is still The Last Word. I had the impression, that there some people still using that. And TLW only uses text output.

What I want to do is a most capable emulation.

Edited April 16, 2019 by JoSch

[flashjazzcat]

Indeed: I know of one forum member who uses TLW to create documents for his work, and who prints them out using a real printer.

[+DrVenkman]

Indeed: I know of one forum member who uses TLW to create documents for his work, and who prints them out using a real printer.

I certainly don’t mean to denigrate TLW. It’s an amazing word processor, certainly the best and most full-featured ever created for the A8. I would have loved to have it in 1984 when I got my first disk drive for my 800.

 

And just this past weekend I made sure to copy it over onto a partition on a new CF card for my 1088XLD.

 

That said, my “real” document creation is through MS Office at work on company-owned computers. Most of those documents are distributed by email or uploaded to a project database for direct access by team members and never even get printed. On my laptop I have a $7/month subscription to Office and the full suite of Office tools, mostly for Excel but Word comes as part of the deal.

 

So on my Atari, while I might produce a document occasionally these days for nostalgia, I’d be much more inclined to do something retro-graphics related if I could get the output to a PDF.

[JoSch]

So on my Atari, while I might produce a document occasionally these days for nostalgia, I’d be much more inclined to do something retro-graphics related if I could get the output to a PDF.

Eventually, we will get there

[flashjazzcat]

No criticism of the word processor was inferred. I simply point out that there are people still using A8 word processors to produce printed material, and that emulated text mode printer output would therefore be useful. Indeed, it would be especially useful for development, since I don't even have a printer rigged up to an Atari. So the only way I can test the print processor is via print to disk, which does not account for printer character styling using embedded formatting codes, etc.

Edited April 16, 2019 by flashjazzcat

[Kyle22]

I would also like to see a no emulation option where every byte sent by the Atari goes directly to the printer unchanged. Maybe add a CR or CR/LF option.

[JoSch]

Actually, we have a text output window. Perhaps I can extend it, so that all the control codes are shown (if that's not already the case).

[Kyle22]

To clarify what I wrote above:

I want to be able to choose a printer (from the Windows printer list) and print directly to it. That's why I mentioned the 'no translation' and CR/LF options.

[JoSch]

Ah, and no translation means dropping all the control codes and print only the text.

If so, then select the text window as output and print from there.

[Mathy]

Hello JoSch

 

There is a misunderstanding. I meant the types of emulated printers.

We have at least one plotter (Atari 1020), daisy wheels (Atari 1027, Atari XDM121), matrix printer with text only (Atari 825), matrix printers with text and graphics (eg. Atari 1029) and then the odd text only matrix printer with roll paper (Atari 820).

I hope, you get my drift

And don't get me started on all the ESC/P compatible printers.

 

Most "modern" printers have a resolution much higher than the printers from the era when Atari was still selling printers. Why would characters be wider on the emulated printer than on the real thing?

 

Sincerely

 

Mathy

Edited April 18, 2019 by Mathy

[JoSch]

For proportional fonts there is no telling, how they are built. Font are measured in points, i.e. 1/72 inch. That means that the font size is really independent of the resolution. All the resolution does is, you don't see the dot matrix anymore.

[_The Doctor__]

they used to call that microfeed, it is very predictable and should be mathematically viable to reproduce.

 

 

Ah, and no translation means dropping all the control codes and print only the text.
If so, then select the text window as output and print from there.

not at all, no translation means passing the data to the printer untouched, exactly as the Atari sends it, this allows you to have the legacy printer on the PC and use the Atari with respeqt running to print remotely to the printer and help out those without an 850/pr/mio/black box/axiom/supra/ xetec whatever printer interface...

Edited April 19, 2019 by _The Doctor__

[JoSch]

they used to call that microfeed, it is very predictable and should be mathematically viable to reproduce.

 

 

not at all, no translation means passing the data to the printer untouched, exactly as the Atari sends it, this allows you to have the legacy printer on the PC and use the Atari with respeqt running to print remotely to the printer and help out those without an 850/pr/mio/black box/axiom/supra/ xetec whatever printer interface...

Then, I misunderstrood Kyle22.

Well, I don't know whether that's easily doable with Windows and Macos. I have to research this. Let's see.

[JoSch]

I finished raw support for Win32. Appended is as always the binary only zip.

Go to the settings and under "Raw printer settings", select one of your printers.

In the Printer strip select "Passthrough" as printer type and "Raw printer" as output type.

Since I don't have an Epson or so printer, I just did test it with a "Generic Text Printer". That worked.

If somebody can please test it, and give me feedback, I would be grateful.

 

RespeQt_win32-binaryonly.zip

Edited April 26, 2019 by JoSch

[JoSch]

Here another drop, this time for MacOS.

Perhaps somebody with an old printer on an network share can test this.

 

RespeQt_mac-binaryonly.zip

[JoSch]

Had anyone success with the passthrough option?