[comp.sys.atari.st] Word-Up

themod@blake.acs.washington.edu (Chris Hinton) (11/19/89)

  I just purchased my copy of Word-Up on Friday and I am already having a
problem, can you beleive that?  Anyway, I set it up according to the manual
entry to work with a 1040ST with a double sided drive and a Gemini 15X 
printer.  Everything is okay, I load it up, go through the install program
without a hitch.  Then I load it up, make a little document and try to 
print it out and it just send garbage to the printer.  Why?  Any help
would be appreciated.

   Chris Hinton

abc@cs.purdue.EDU (Rick Hunter) (11/20/89)

In article <4529@blake.acs.washington.edu>, themod@blake.acs.washington.edu (Chris Hinton) writes:
> 
>   I just purchased my copy of Word-Up on Friday and I am already having a
> problem, can you beleive that?  Anyway, I set it up according to the manual
> entry to work with a 1040ST with a double sided drive and a Gemini 15X 
> printer.  Everything is okay, I load it up, go through the install program
> without a hitch.  Then I load it up, make a little document and try to 
> print it out and it just send garbage to the printer.  Why?  Any help
> would be appreciated.
> 
>    Chris Hinton

Funny you should mention this. When I first got a copy of this program
I had the same problem. Except, I was using a Gemini10X. I could not get
the thing to work with the printer unless I did some fancy formating
with page length and width. Even then it was not guaranteed to work.

What did I end up doing? My brother coughed for a new printer that 
is known to work with it. I could not determine exactly if the problem
was in the software or my outdated printer. For all the trouble you are
going through I would suggest buying a new printer. Oddly, I could
get it to work with the Star NX-1000 at the store where I bought the
program. Hope this helps. Has anyone else had this problem with the
older Gemini printers?????

Alan Chan
abc@arthur.cs.purdue.edu

pegram@uvm-gen.UUCP (pegram r) (11/21/89)

From article <4529@blake.acs.washington.edu>, by themod@blake.acs.washington.edu (Chris Hinton):
> 
>   I just purchased my copy of Word-Up on Friday and I am already having a
> problem, can you beleive that?  Anyway, I set it up according to the manual
> entry to work with a 1040ST with a double sided drive and a Gemini 15X 
> printer.  Everything is okay, I load it up, go through the install program
> without a hitch.  Then I load it up, make a little document and try to 
> print it out and it just send garbage to the printer.  Why?  Any help
> would be appreciated.
> 
>    Chris Hinton

Two possibilities:

1st: (unlikely, but this should be posted) 
Nov ST WORLD (US) published a virus report from Neocept.
WordUp 2.0 serial # WUP004000 to 004250 to 101124 (sic) is contaminated. Use 
a virus killer to remove the virus or send a blank formatted disk and a SASE
to Neocept to receive Neocept's boot sector virus killer.
 Neocept, Inc.
 547-a Costitution Ave.
 Camarillo, CA 93010
 Attn: Virus Killer


2nd: I suspect that you didn't set up the program or printer correctly.
	WordUp prints in graphics mode to get all its fonts and pictures
	out.  Your SG15 like many Epson "compatibles" has two modes of 
	operation, Epson like ("Star" mode) and IBM mode.  These have slightly
	different command sets, especially for graphics. Recheck all program
	settings and SG 15 dip switches.  The printer must have its power 
	cycled to recognize new dip switch settings.

This sort of thing applies to most dot matrix printers,
hope it helps,
		Bob Pegram

jlf@h.cs.wvu.wvnet.edu (Jack L Forester,???K,2933607,6526712) (11/22/89)

From article <8679@medusa.cs.purdue.edu>, by abc@cs.purdue.EDU (Rick Hunter):
> In article <4529@blake.acs.washington.edu>, themod@blake.acs.washington.edu (Chris Hinton) writes:
>> 
  [some stuff deleted...]
> 
> Funny you should mention this. When I first got a copy of this program
> I had the same problem. Except, I was using a Gemini10X. I could not get
> the thing to work with the printer unless I did some fancy formating
> with page length and width. Even then it was not guaranteed to work.
> 
> What did I end up doing? My brother coughed for a new printer that 
> is known to work with it. I could not determine exactly if the problem
> was in the software or my outdated printer. For all the trouble you are
> going through I would suggest buying a new printer. Oddly, I could
> get it to work with the Star NX-1000 at the store where I bought the
> program. Hope this helps. Has anyone else had this problem with the
> older Gemini printers?????
> 
> Alan Chan
> abc@arthur.cs.purdue.edu

That sounds a lot like the problem I was having when I first got Microsoft
Write.  I, too, am using an older Gemini 10X printer, but I worked around
the problem this way (I know these are two different programs, but they both
use GDOS so this might help).

1.  First I made sure I was using the FX80.SYS driver and that the printer
    setup (on the DA) was set to 960 dots per line.

2.  I patched the printer driver so that that the proper sized line feeds
    were sent to the printer.  This came about after I finally got something
    to be printed - there were gaps in the printed material.

Now anything that uses GDOS will print properly on my printer.  I don't
think I can legally post the modified driver here on the net, but I can
try to dig up the docs I wrote to explain how to patch the driver.  If there
is enough interest, I'll post them, otherwise, I'll email them.

Jack Forester, Jr.
West Virginia University
Department of Computer Science and other Imaginary Things.
That's jlf@a.cs.wvu.wvnet.edu to you!

covertr@force.UUCP (Richard E. Covert) (11/30/89)

In article <8679@medusa.cs.purdue.edu>, abc@cs.purdue.EDU (Rick Hunter) writes:
> In article <4529@blake.acs.washington.edu>, themod@blake.acs.washington.edu (Chris Hinton) writes:
> > 
> > entry to work with a 1040ST with a double sided drive and a Gemini 15X 
> > printer.  Everything is okay, I load it up, go through the install program
> > 
> >    Chris Hinton
> 
> Funny you should mention this. When I first got a copy of this program
> I had the same problem. Except, I was using a Gemini10X. I could not get
> the thing to work with the printer unless I did some fancy formating
> with page length and width. Even then it was not guaranteed to work.
> 
> What did I end up doing? My brother coughed for a new printer that 
> is known to work with it. I could not determine exactly if the problem
> was in the software or my outdated printer. For all the trouble you are
> going through I would suggest buying a new printer. Oddly, I could
> get it to work with the Star NX-1000 at the store where I bought the
> program. Hope this helps. Has anyone else had this problem with the
> older Gemini printers?????
> 
> Alan Chan
> abc@arthur.cs.purdue.edu


That is funny, because I bought my Gemini-10X over 10 years ago, back
when the original Epson mx-80 came out. And the Gemini-10X was NEVER
100% compatible with the Epson mx/fx-80 printers. All kinds of programs
broke when using the old Gemini-10X. Which is a shame because the Gemini-10X
was a very reliable dependable printer. I perferred it over the mx-80 printers.
I used my Gemini-10X with my S-100 buss computer (remember the z80 and cpm80?).
and it worked fine in most applications.

But the 10X never worked quite right with ST programs.

Oh well, buy a new 24 pin printer, it has better printouts and you can buy
a new 24 pin printer for < $300.00 (USD of course).

Gee, and I thought that the 10X printers would be all gone by now. shows just
how good they are if they are still in use after 10 years!!


rich Covert (gtephx!covertr NOT force!covertr, force is my Apollo node name,
as in Let the Force be with you!! :-) ).