Amiga printer driver for WinUAE

[Ed Cruse]

I’m just thinking out loud here so please correct me if I’m wrong.

When I use WinUAE to print I have WinUAE set to Window’s text only printer driver which seems to pass all bytes through it without any translation. This allows me to print text and graphics properly. The problem is if I don’t happen to have an Amiga printer driver for a particular printer I have a problem.

It seems to me that it should be possible to write an Amiga printer driver that converts the standard Amiga commands and graphics data to Window’s standard commands and graphics data. By using only this driver and selecting the appropriate Windows printer driver in WinUAE you should be able to print text and graphics to any printer that Windows has a driver for.

Does anybody know if this is even remotely possible, I have no idea what Window’s printer drivers actually do. I do know that printer.device on the Amiga does most of the hard work and all the printer driver sees is standard commands and standard format graphics data to convert to printer specific commands and graphics data.

I looked on Aminet and couldn’t find anything like this, is there an Amiga printer driver that does this? Is there some other way to take advantage of Window’s printer drivers that I’m over looking?

Thank you for any info.

[davideo]

I belive I read somewhere (perhaps on WinUAE website or Cloantos) that you could download a program to convert the Amiga output to a format suitable to print on a PC.

In fact - I've just checked - have a look here http://www.amigaforever.com/kb/3-146.html this may help you

[Toni Wilen]

Amiga Postscript driver + Postscript emulation enabled in ports-panel. (Windows-side Ghostscript installation needed)

[Ed Cruse]

Thanks for the info. I went to the link and I believe it will help a lot. Where do I find Ghostscript, is it free software or something that I have to buy?

[davideo]

Originally Posted by Ed Cruse

Where do I find Ghostscript, is it free software or something that I have to buy?

It's on the same page as the previous link. Look for the word GhostScript and yes it's totally free

Or go direct to the website http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/

[Ed Cruse]

Thank you.

[davideo]

You're welcome

Let me know how you get on because I'd like to try it out myself when I get time

[Toni Wilen]

btw, some AmigaOS version Postscript printer driver have bugs in some color mode. I don't remember if it was greyscale or color but it crashes or something.. (there was thread somewhere here..)

[Ed Cruse]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

btw, some AmigaOS version Postscript printer driver have bugs in some color mode. I don't remember if it was greyscale or color but it crashes or something.. (there was thread somewhere here..)

I don't know if this is the bug you are thinking of, but I can't seem to do a GraphicDump when selecting Prostscript as the driver, I'm using 3.9. Printer.device does an illegal instruction when I try, it's also a problem with my real A3000. BTW, Printing text works really good.

To change the subject a little, is there anyway to use Ghostscript in a portable manner, make it so WinUAE can use it without actuall installing it. That way I can use the Postscript bridge method with WinUAE on my Flashdrive. I read most all the instructions for Ghostscript and all they did was make me tired. Ghostscript is really complicated, at least for me.

[Ed Cruse]

Originally Posted by davideo

You're welcome

Let me know how you get on because I'd like to try it out myself when I get time

It works real good, all I did was install it and it works without changing any settings. It's a good thing too, I find Ghostscript to be very complicated.

[davideo]

Originally Posted by Ed Cruse

I read most all the instructions for Ghostscript and all they did was make me tired.

No good me trying to read it then because 5 minutes after I pick something up to read - I've nodded off

[Ed Cruse]

Originally Posted by davideo

No good me trying to read it then because 5 minutes after I pick something up to read - I've nodded off

I know what you mean, when I was in school it used to really irritate me.

Fortunetly, it appears all you have to do is install it, set up WinUAE to use Ghostscript, select a windows driver, and then select Postscript as the printer driver in the Amiga, and it works. On my Epson LQ570 it prints very slowly but the quality is very good. Normally to use this printer I use an Amiga driver and select the Text Only windows driver. Now, I know that I can use a modern printer if I need to.

[davideo]

Originally Posted by Ed Cruse

I know what you mean, when I was in school it used to really irritate me.

It used to irratate my teachers more

Originally Posted by Ed Cruse

Fortunetly, it appears all you have to do is install it, set up WinUAE to use Ghostscript, select a windows driver, and then select Postscript as the printer driver in the Amiga, and it works. On my Epson LQ570 it prints very slowly but the quality is very good. Normally to use this printer I use an Amiga driver and select the Text Only windows driver. Now, I know that I can use a modern printer if I need to.

I'll have to give a go sometime next week. There's a couple of things I'd like to print off from my Amiga