PrtDrvGen 2.4 by Jørgen Thomsen ========================================================================= 1. How to use PrtDrvGen ? ========================= PrtDrvGen is designed to be run from the CLI and not the Workbench, but included is the PrtDrvGen-WB icon, which allows you to execute it from the Workbench by way of the IconX command. Note, that in this case some output from PrtDrvGen will be written into the file "*" in the root drawer of the disk containing the PrtDrvGen. From the CLI enter the commands (assuming that you store all these files in a drawer called PrtDrvgen) CD "PrtDrvGen" PrtDrvGen As driver name you may keep the proposed one and modify these parameters. Before you save your modifications, you may then change the name. You may also enter your own driver name and start with an entirely blank sheet. Thirdly you may specify the name of an existing driver in DEVS:printers and decode that as a basis for your modifications. Files in the PrtDrvGen drawer  PrtDrvGen.doc advice on using the PrtDrvGen program and discusses some of the features of PrtDrvGen in greater detail PrtDrvGen the User Interface/preprocessor, output from this program is an ASCII text file with all the parameters the driver generator program needs (e.g. MyEpson.dat). PrtDrvGen2 the actual printer driver generator. Will take the ASCII file (e.g. MyEpson.dat), read it and make a table which is combined with the skeleton driver in the file PrtDrv.lod to make the actual printer driver. The driver (e.g. file MyEpson) is stored in the current directory. Copy the file into DEVS:printers and change Preferences to use this driver. PDG24.txt this is the documentation file used by the PrtDrvGen program. You should not modify or read this file. PDG24.idx an index into PDG24.txt used by the PrtDrvGen program. If it is not present, when PrtDrvGen is run it will be generated by PrtDrvGen. PrtDrv.lod the skeleton driver written in TDI Modula-2, compiled and linked. PrtDrvGen2 will modify the header of this file and add the file to a table of data. 2. Features =========== - the user interface is a special interactive preprocessor with online documentation for each printer command and featuring a decimal/hex to octal converter - the preprocessor is able to decode or reverse engineer an existing printer driver and get many of the parameters needed from it - in connection with the utility program AssignPRT it is possible to redirect PRT: output to a file. Speeds up repeated graphics prints. The driver generated supports several classes of graphics printers: - printers which enter into and out of graphics mode by detecting a special char (e.g. 03) in the data stream e.g. Citizen - printers which only use a part of each byte for graphics data e.g. Toshiba (6 bits only) and others - Red, Green, Blue printers supported e.g. Quadram Quadjet - laser printers/plotters supported by vectorization of each scan line of a picture - printers which can obtain a higher density by printing a line of graphics data, move the paper e.g. 1/2 dot and print the next line of data (e.g. Epson). This feature can also be used for other special printers e.g. Tektronix/Diablo-C150 - a feature, which allows for sending about 15 K of raw bytes to the printer for special setup (e.g. special character definition and commands), should allow the driver to be used with even more printers - the Amiga extended ASCII character set support introduced by AmigaDOS 1.2 is fully supported - optional setting of pitch, margins before graphics and resetting of spacing after graphics - native control codes may be sent to the printer device PRT:. This is accomplished by using the EXTEND command. - some primitive arithmetic operations on data may be specified to enable creation of special control codes for odd printers - numeric parameters may be inserted as 1-9 digit fields in radix 1 - 24 notation (octal(8), decimal(10) and hex(16) are most commonly used !) - a debugging mode with some dumps may be entered by executing a special EXTEND command (253) and in case of errors an error code is printed on the printer if possible - each paper size (USLetter etc.) may have individually defined width, length, perforation skip length and printer initialization sequence. Allows you through Preferences to select several combinations of character sets, justification, proportional spacing etc. - definable size of Pica, Elite and Fine types for printers supporting other character sizes than 10, 12, 15 CPI - perforation skip when Fanfold selected, but not when Single - insert internal parameters as binary or decimal numbers into escape sequences specific for your printer - partial line up/down implemented as such and not as sub/superscript, which optionally is available - graphics dumps may be scaled to any size and positioned on the paper according to most recent margins and print pitch settings by user. This provides better support for mixing text and graphics - supports up to four graphics modes, if your printer does the same. Specify by combination of Draft/Letter and 6/8 LPI. - printing of blank lines in graphics dumps optimized. No more idle passes of the print head across the paper. (Optional with 2.0) - definable pixel width/height ratio to get you true round circles and square squares with e.g. DPaint and Aegis Draw - definable print sequence of colors to get the best colors for your printer or match the sequence of data required for your printer - for printers supporting fore/background colors it is possible to define the printer specific color values - pixel bits stored in the print buffer according to specified parameters in order to accomodate different brands of printers - adaptive double buffering (if memory not available for two buffers, then use only one) and allocation of small buffers for b/w and grey scale pictures (compensates for the larger code size of this driver) - in case of lack of sufficient contiguous memory "No mem" (2.0: and the amount of memory requested) will be output to the printer 3. Known bugs ============= - the FNT0 (US char set) command is not executed, which is an AmigaDOS bug (in 1.2, not tested in 1.3 or 2.0)