hugh@dgp.toronto.edu (D. Hugh Redelmeier) (12/20/89)
I recently bought an HP LaserJet IIP for my 1040ST (and my Sun, but
that is another story). To exploit the capabilities of the LJ, I
bought a GDOS driver for it (TurboJet from Neocept). I am
attempting to use it with Microsoft Write and EasyDraw.
The whole experience has not been very pleasant. I have encountered
innumerable problems, many of which remain a mystery. This note
contains both cautionary tales, and pleas for help. Perhaps I should
mention that my 1040 has TOS1.4, GDOS 1.1, and EasyDraw 2.3. There
is only one (released) version of MS Write.
- Using GDOS to drive the LJ seems unnecessarily slow. At least the
first page of fairly plain text output takes a couple of minutes.
In contrast, TeX drives the printer at close to its full rated
speed, 4 pages per minute. [The TeX output bytes were generated by
my Sun, but they were transmitted to the printer by my ST.] The
key seems to be that the TeX driver downloads fonts a character at
a time, ON DEMAND. Often, most characters in a font never get
downloaded. The GDOS driver may not even use fonts, I don't know.
- Being an official Atari ST Developer, I thought that I might be
able to write my own driver to solve the speed problem. ATARI
sent me their GDOS printer driver construction kit.
Unfortunately, it contains no documentation of the interface
between GDOS and printer drivers! Neither does it contain
documentation on the library of routines provided to do many of
the driver tasks. There are several sample drivers for dot-matrix
printers, so no doubt one could easily be mutated into a driver
for another dot-matrix printer. This is no help in supporting the
LJ well (i.e. figuring out how to download and then use fonts).
Atari Canada said that what I got is all there is. Atari US says
that it is a Big Deal to get more (proposal in writing for Big
People to consider).
- When GDOS is loaded, MS Write will crash when I use upparrow or
downarrow keys to cross a change-of-indent. This does not happen
without GDOS.
- I tried to use GDOS with a large RAM disk. Apparently this left
too little memory for GDOS. The symptoms were not at all clear
and it took me a week to figure out the problem. The symptoms
were that MS Write and EasyDraw were not able to display all the
fonts they should have, and could print even fewer. GDOS or the
printer driver made font substitutions with *no* diagnostic. As
you might imagine, I spent many fruitless hours playing with the
assign.sys etc.
- MS Write seems to require all printer fonts to be loaded into RAM,
even if they are not used. On a 1040ST, this means that you must
hide some fonts from Write (don't list them in assign.sys, or don't
have them in the specified files). Again, failure is indicated by
printing with the wrong font.
- EasyDraw crashes when I try to save files. I found that this does
not happen if I use an obsolete version of meta.sys. Migraph
doesn't know why (but I only phoned them once).
- I sometimes use AMCGDOS (broadcast over the net from Germany) in
place of GDOS. I have not really noticed any difference, but I
use either version of GDOS as little as I can manage.
- The only PD font that I have found that comes in the resolutions I
need is "Camelot". Unfortunately the 300DPI version seems to
malformed: TurboJet won't touch it. Are there other PD fonts in
screen and laser resolutions? I wonder if it would be easy to
convert MetaFont (TeX) fonts to GDOS formats.
- Sometimes the 1040ST seems to think that the HPLJIIP is busy when
it isn't. This is independent of GDOS -- it happens for normal
printouts too. It only happens when the ST first tries to use the
printer after the printer or the ST has been powered on (not every
time; it may depend on which is powered on first). I presume that
this is related to problems people have reported with HP DeskJet
printers connected to STs. The program djreset.acc previously
broadcast on the net seems to overcome this problem, but it is
hard to activate it while running a non-GEM program.
Trying to discover the source of problems or find workarounds is
very painful. There are just too many components and I have no
tools to audit the interfaces.
GDOS is a tool that adds what should be an important dimension to
the ST. Many feel GDOS should have been built into GEM, burned into
the ROMS. The current licensing rules just seem to be a nuisance.
Since AMCGDOS has been broadcast, all that is needed to avoid
licensing is a collection of reasonable fonts and printer drivers.
GDOS as it is now is cumbersome and slow. For me, the worst problem
is that I now have very little confidence in GDOS-based software.
Remember: my experience has been as a user, not a programmer. I
have not used it extensively (too painful :-). So take my comments
with a grain of salt.
Hugh Redelmeier
{utcsri, yunexus, uunet!attcan, utzoo, hcr}!redvax!hugh
When all else fails: hugh@csri.toronto.edu
+1 416 482-8253hugh@dgp.toronto.edu@canremote.uucp (hugh@dgp.toronto.edu) (12/21/89)
From: hugh@dgp.toronto.edu (D. Hugh Redelmeier) I recently bought an HP LaserJet IIP for my 1040ST (and my Sun, but that is another story). To exploit the capabilities of the LJ, I bought a GDOS driver for it (TurboJet from Neocept). I am attempting to use it with Microsoft Write and EasyDraw. The whole experience has not been very pleasant. I have encountered innumerable problems, many of which remain a mystery. This note contains both cautionary tales, and pleas for help. Perhaps I should mention that my 1040 has TOS1.4, GDOS 1.1, and EasyDraw 2.3. There is only one (released) version of MS Write. - Using GDOS to drive the LJ seems unnecessarily slow. At least the first page of fairly plain text output takes a couple of minutes. In contrast, TeX drives the printer at close to its full rated speed, 4 pages per minute. [The TeX output bytes were generated by my Sun, but they were transmitted to the printer by my ST.] The key seems to be that the TeX driver downloads fonts a character at a time, ON DEMAND. Often, most characters in a font never get downloaded. The GDOS driver may not even use fonts, I don't know. - Being an official Atari ST Developer, I thought that I might be able to write my own driver to solve the speed problem. ATARI sent me their GDOS printer driver construction kit. Unfortunately, it contains no documentation of the interface between GDOS and printer drivers! Neither does it contain documentation on the library of routines provided to do many of the driver tasks. There are several sample drivers for dot-matrix printers, so no doubt one could easily be mutated into a driver for another dot-matrix printer. This is no help in supporting the LJ well (i.e. figuring out how to download and then use fonts). Atari Canada said that what I got is all there is. Atari US says that it is a Big Deal to get more (proposal in writing for Big People to consider). - When GDOS is loaded, MS Write will crash when I use upparrow or downarrow keys to cross a change-of-indent. This does not happen without GDOS. - I tried to use GDOS with a large RAM disk. Apparently this left too little memory for GDOS. The symptoms were not at all clear and it took me a week to figure out the problem. The symptoms were that MS Write and EasyDraw were not able to display all the fonts they should have, and could print even fewer. GDOS or the printer driver made font substitutions with *no* diagnostic. As you might imagine, I spent many fruitless hours playing with the assign.sys etc. - MS Write seems to require all printer fonts to be loaded into RAM, even if they are not used. On a 1040ST, this means that you must hide some fonts from Write (don't list them in assign.sys, or don't have them in the specified files). Again, failure is indicated by printing with the wrong font. - EasyDraw crashes when I try to save files. I found that this does not happen if I use an obsolete version of meta.sys. Migraph doesn't know why (but I only phoned them once). - I sometimes use AMCGDOS (broadcast over the net from Germany) in place of GDOS. I have not really noticed any difference, but I use either version of GDOS as little as I can manage. - The only PD font that I have found that comes in the resolutions I need is "Camelot". Unfortunately the 300DPI version seems to malformed: TurboJet won't touch it. Are there other PD fonts in screen and laser resolutions? I wonder if it would be easy to convert MetaFont (TeX) fonts to GDOS formats. - Sometimes the 1040ST seems to think that the HPLJIIP is busy when it isn't. This is independent of GDOS -- it happens for normal printouts too. It only happens when the ST first tries to use the printer after the printer or the ST has been powered on (not every time; it may depend on which is powered on first). I presume that this is related to problems people have reported with HP DeskJet printers connected to STs. The program djreset.acc previously broadcast on the net seems to overcome this problem, but it is hard to activate it while running a non-GEM program. Trying to discover the source of problems or find workarounds is very painful. There are just too many components and I have no tools to audit the interfaces. GDOS is a tool that adds what should be an important dimension to the ST. Many feel GDOS should have been built into GEM, burned into the ROMS. The current licensing rules just seem to be a nuisance. Since AMCGDOS has been broadcast, all that is needed to avoid licensing is a collection of reasonable fonts and printer drivers. GDOS as it is now is cumbersome and slow. For me, the worst problem is that I now have very little confidence in GDOS-based software. *-*-*-*-* Message continued in next message *-*-*-*-* --- * Via MaSNet/HST96/HST144/V32 - UN Atari ST * Via Usenet Newsgroup comp.sys.atari.st
hugh@dgp.toronto.edu@canremote.uucp (hugh@dgp.toronto.edu) (12/21/89)
From: hugh@dgp.toronto.edu (D. Hugh Redelmeier)
*-*-*-*-* Message continued from prior message *-*-*-*-*
Remember: my experience has been as a user, not a programmer. I
have not used it extensively (too painful :-). So take my comments
with a grain of salt.
Hugh Redelmeier
{utcsri, yunexus, uunet!attcan, utzoo, hcr}!redvax!hugh
When all else fails: hugh@csri.toronto.edu
+1 416 482-8253
---
* Via MaSNet/HST96/HST144/V32 - UN Atari ST
* Via Usenet Newsgroup comp.sys.atari.st