Printing Cyrillic (Ukrainian or Russian) txt's with a dot matrix printer

[Marius]

Are there any EPROM files available for Epson or Star Dot Matrix printers so that they would be able to print Cyrillic characters?

 

I would like to use my Atari 8bit as a distraction-free learning environment and printing word lists. 

 

But next to the challenge to make the a8 operate on Cyrillic (I can type it without looking at the keys on my Mac) I do not worry about the Qwerty keyboard of the atari.

But the next challenge is to print it... and since my Dot Matrix printers do have an international font, but only for accents, I was wondering whether there would be complete ROM updates for these Cyrillic characters available. 

[Mathy]

Hello Marius

 

DaisyDot II and/or III might be able to do that.  Runs on the Atari.

 

Sincerely

 

Mathy

 

[Peri Noid]

Panther can do both cyrilic and print on a standard matrix printer. You may give it a try.

[Marius]

I got this reply on Facebook as well! I am going to test this now. 

Is it possible to design printer-drivers for Panther. It might not work out of the box on my Epson. I also can not remember that I had this list of printers in my Panther setup...

 

 

[Marius]

9 hours ago, Mathy said:

Hello Marius

 

DaisyDot II and/or III might be able to do that.  Runs on the Atari.

 

Sincerely

 

Mathy

 

Cool. I have to check it out!

[Peri Noid]

5 minutes ago, Marius said:

Is it possible to design printer-drivers for Panther. It might not work out of the box on my Epson.

I think it's possible but don't ask me how - I have no idea.

6 minutes ago, Marius said:

I also can not remember that I had this list of printers in my Panther setup...

Try this one: http://atarionline.pl/utils/1. Biuro/Panther/Panther.atr

[Marius]

@Peri Noid Well, it is amazing. I booted Panther from that disk, and it looks just like what you showed me. 

 

There is INDEED a cyrillic font available. 

And the printer drivers are files, so I might study how they are made, and if none of them works with the Epson, I could try to modify one of them.

 

Oh this is such a good starting point. Very much appreciated.

Thanks

 

[Marius]

Oh there is a problem...

 

It does not print graphically, but it simply sends the character data to the printer. So it still prints with the built in characterset of the printer. Is there a chance that when you printed back in the days, that your printer had a Polish characterset? 

[Peri Noid]

13 minutes ago, Marius said:

It does not print graphically, but it simply sends the character data to the printer. So it still prints with the built in characterset of the printer. Is there a chance that when you printed back in the days, that your printer had a Polish characterset? 

Oh s... I'm sorry, I was convinced, it would work. But you are right 😕

[HiassofT]

Which type of Epson printer do you have?

 

The FX80 (and likely others, too) support user defined characters which you can just upload to RAM. Once you do that you can simply use the uploaded font from BASIC or any other program that doesn't reset the printer back to the ROM character set.

 

See chapter 15 of the user manual

https://files.support.epson.com/pdf/fx80__/fx80__uv.pdf

 

so long,

 

Hias

[Marius]

hi Hias,

 

Yes, thanks, that is an option. But It is pretty complicated (for me) to understand how.

 

I have the LQ400 and I have the manual here, and it seems that it is supported. There is a small basic program in the manual that would demonstrate how you could design your own arrow.

 

I am not sure whether I am able to design this characterset. But it is a start...

 

[Irgendwer]

Atari magazin 6/88, Page 60 is what you are looking for.

http://www.atarimania.com/mags/pdf/Atari-Magazin-88-06.pdf

 

(No need to type in, you can find the magazine disks here:

http://ataribasiclistings.mygamesonline.org/ )

[Marius]

1 hour ago, Irgendwer said:

Atari magazin 6/88, Page 60 is what you are looking for.

http://www.atarimania.com/mags/pdf/Atari-Magazin-88-06.pdf

 

 

(No need to type in, you can find the magazine disks here:

http://ataribasiclistings.mygamesonline.org/ )

Wow, amazing. Thank you SO MUCH!

 

I can not find the disk though. Are you sure it is there? It is not on the lazy fingers disk, and also not on the Atari Magazin disk. 

 

I can type it in myself though... But if you can check for me, I am probably looking wrong.

 

Thanks

Marius

 

[Irgendwer]

17 minutes ago, Marius said:

I can not find the disk though. Are you sure it is there? It is not on the lazy fingers disk, and also not on the Atari Magazin disk. 

The "Lazy Finger Disks von 1988" 7zip contains a "LF8806_B.ATR" file:

 

Ok?

[Marius]

Oh I am really getting old @Irgendwer. I did not see there was a B-site. Thank you so much for your patience. This is really helpful. I am going to give it a try!

Thanks!

 

Marius

[thorfdbg]

Many matrix printers have downloadable fonts such that you can redefine how the characters look like. It is a matter of sending the right ESC-sequences to them. My P6 could certainly do that. This would avoid sending graphics - you would download the font once, and then everything printed would appear in the font you defined.