ned@philabs.philips.com (Edward Sheehey) (11/29/90)
Does anybody out there in WindowLand know where I can get a Windows 3 printer driver for an Okidata Okimate 20 color printer? Okidata says to call Microsoft and of course Microsoft says to call Okidata. I tried using Atech Publishers Powerpak on a friends machine, but it only supports B&W on the Okimate. Is there any way to write a printer driver or modify one for Windows without buying $1000 worth of sofware and taking 6 months to learn to write it? I have glanced through a few Windows programming books at the local B. Dalton and there is no mention of printer drivers in any of them! Thanks for any help you can provide! Ned ned@philabs.philips.com uunet!philabs.philips.com!ned
nee@cf_su14.Salomon.Com (Robert Nee) (11/30/90)
> Does anybody out there in WindowLand know where I can get a > Windows 3 printer driver for an Okidata Okimate 20 color > printer? I'm not sure but I thing the Okimate is compatible with the Epson printers in color mode. If so, Try using one of the Epson printer drivers (for 9 pins) and select a printer that supports color (Jx-80?). I'm not surprised that MS came up clueless on this one but the people at Oki must be real IDIOTS if they don't know what printers the Okimate emulates. Robert Nee
bcw@rti.rti.org (Bruce Wright) (12/08/90)
In article <113725@philabs.Philips.Com>, ned@philabs.philips.com (Edward Sheehey) writes: > Does anybody out there in WindowLand know where I can get a > Windows 3 printer driver for an Okidata Okimate 20 color > printer? No, sorry, your best bet is to bother Okidata again and see if they can give more information on what other printers theirs look like. > Is there any way to write a printer driver or modify one > for Windows without buying $1000 worth of sofware and > taking 6 months to learn to write it? I have glanced through > a few Windows programming books at the local B. Dalton and there > is no mention of printer drivers in any of them! Not really. Windows drivers, and especially printer and video drivers, are complex objects. Very few people who do Windows programming actually write drivers (part of the whole point of writing in a standard "higher-level" environment), so there are few other toolkits and books on how to do it other than the Microsoft Driver Development Kit (DDK). Even if you had the information and the software it would still take quite a while to absorb all of it. I don't know that 6 months would be the right amount of time but it would be a good guess. Unless you have other drivers you want to write, or unless you just happen to like writing this sort of thing, you'd be better off trying to find something that already exists. Bruce C. Wright