W8SDZ@SIMTEL20.ARPA (Keith Petersen) (06/20/88)
Now available via standard anonymous FTP from SIMTEL20.ARPA...
Filename Type Bytes CRC
Directory PD1:<MSDOS.PRINTER>
DMP131.ARC BINARY 32716 3DF1H
DMP is a general purpose printer controller program, including disk
spooling capabilities. The controller portion is designed to allow
you to add some simple features to your printer and to allow a limited
amount of emulation of one printer's features with another printer via
command line options. This version corrects a bug in the automatic
parallel port startup from the previous version.
DMP is memory resident and uses approximately 12K bytes of available
memory on an IBM PC, XT, AT or close compatible. This program is not
compatible with the DOS 'PRINT' utility, or with any other print
spoolers/buffers which drive printer no. 1. It has been used with
MS-DOS and PC-DOS versions 2.0 thru 3.1 and with numerous
'TSR' programs, with no compatibility problems except as noted in the
documentation.
This version allows switching between the serial and parallel printers
with data spooled or without. It is recommended that you wait until a
printer has finished printing all the data spooled for it, because
some data may be lost during the switch.
The spooler portion is a true spooler, not a buffer as many other
printer programs. It creates disk files with filenames $PSPOOL.nnn,
where 'nnn' ranges from '000' to '999'. The files are written as
printer output is generated, then read and deleted when the
information is printed. The files are written on the disk drive
designated on the command line when the program is first run. The
spool files are written to the 'root' directory of the drive.
Subdirectories on a hard disk can be used via the DOS 'SUBST'
commmand.
Three important new capabilities are a "Print-to-disk" option,
improved handling of serial port printers including XOn-XOff pacing,
and programmable translation of escape sequences for printer
emulation.
The "Print-to-disk" option uses the same mechanisms for writing to the
disk as the spooler. The main difference is that the output portion
of the memory buffer is added to the available space used by DMP, as
long as it is not needed for a printer. If the "Print-to-disk"
function is enabled while there is data spooled to be printed, the
spooled data will continue to print until it is finished or the
spooler is aborted by command. Any additional data that is sent from
a running program or from DOS to the printer after "Print-to-disk" is
started will go to the disk file. Any character or escape sequence
conversions that are in effect will show up in the disk file.
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[Note: I am not the author of the above program. Send questions to the
address shown in the documentation, please.]
Keith Petersen
Maintainer of the CP/M and MSDOS archives at SIMTEL20.ARPA [26.0.0.74]
Arpa: W8SDZ@SIMTEL20.ARPA
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