Mail Archives: opendos/2001/02/27/15:27:50
Hi,
I have put together a new issue of my NECPINW.CPI
codepage switching file for the NEC Pinwriter series
(24 wire dot matrix printers) for use under DR DOS 6.0+
(and once a PRINTER.SYS will be available, also for
FreeDOS). It can be freely downloaded with source code
from my web-page, and thanks to Jim the new issue will
soon also be available on ibiblio.
Being thoroughly tested with a P5300 (P7plus) with color
and CSF option and a color P9300 (P90) with dual bin
CSF, Iīm still searching for people to test it under oldest
printer models such as P2/P3, CP2/CP3, P5, P5XL, P9XL,
P6/P7, or CP6/CP7, as well as with more recent or current
printer models such as the P2000 (P2X) or P8000 (P72X).
Also, there are still a number of open questions, please have
a look at the "To Do list" in the "Implementation details"
chapter in NECPINW.ASM, and search for "???" marks in
FILESPEC.TXT, a new file which contains detailed
background info on the supported printer models, their
configuration, and the assumptions/decisions I had to make
when developing NECPINW.CPI.
For testing and future enhancement of NECPINW.CPI,
I am searching for someone who has a printer which has
one of these "external" font/charsets installed in the internal
EPROM option socket.
Other improvements:
- Support for Code Page 858 (Multilingual with EURO SIGN),
the new Code Page 850 successor, as download character set.
- Added more EPROM Code Page selection IDs and a few
other Code Pages such as 1011 (ISO 7 German) bringing the
total count of theoretically supported character sets up to 90.
- Completely restructured the documentation, now corrected
to include info regarding all printer models for which the
manuals were available as .PDF files (or I had them anyway).
- Updated EUROFONT.INC and introduced EUROSIGN.TXT
files to serve as a reference for EURO SIGN representations
in various character sets and as printer and display bitmaps.
I understand that developing such a file for the NEC Pinwriters
is rather specific (some features of these printers made it easier
to develop a .CPI file for them than for printers of other vendors,
and anyway, thatīs what I have here for testing), but once itīs
finished the techniques can be adapted to most other dot matrix
and ink jet printers (I have a prototype for some Epson printers
already). One thing I would like to but donīt have the time to,
is to add the bunch of Code Pages which require more than one
character to be redefined by download fonts.
If someone has the patience and would be willing to design
nice looking Draft and LQ shapes for the ca. 10-50 extra
characters that are missing, I could add another maybe 10-70
Code Pages to be fully supported by NECPINW.CPI (and
other .CPI files) in the future. To help, you donīt need to
know much about the programming of .CPI files as is, but
youīd need to have fun to fill out ones and zeros in grid
matrixes in respect to some easy typographical rules so
that they fit in nicely with the existing resident fonts.
Using the EURO SIGN as an example, the EUROFONT.INC
file contains all the info how to achieve this, but I should note,
that for the purpose of .CPI files for 24 wire dot matrix printers,
only a few of the resolutions shown in EUROFONT.INC would
be required to be implemented, so at the first glance it might
look more work than it actually is. I designed the EURO SIGN
shapes "on paper", to be independent of any external tools.
But using a download font editor could be much easier. (Maybe
someone can recommend one that is easy to handle and gives
full control over all sizing and alignment aspects?) However,
I want to include the shapes as .ASM files, so the font editor
must either output ASM source or I would need to write a
small converter...
Greetings,
Matthias
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Matthias Paul, Ubierstrasse 28, D-50321 Bruehl, Germany
<Matthias DOT Paul AT post DOT rwth-aachen DOT de> <mpaul AT drdos DOT org>
http://www.uni-bonn.de/~uzs180/mpdokeng.html
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