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Post by 8bitheaven on Oct 2, 2015 15:08:55 GMT
Has any one used an Inkjet printer for Wheels 128 or GEOS 2.0 for the 128? at one time I was able to use an HP 500 but it would shrink the page to 2/3 of the page.
Any help would be appreciated.
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Post by hydrophilic on Oct 2, 2015 18:20:59 GMT
I think there is a post on this forum about using modern printers, but I can't find it!
Basically, the author was saying his modern Brother (or HP) printer worked fine using a "Centronics" (user-port) adapter. As I recall, he even had limited color ability (8 color = black, white, red, yellow, green, cyan, blue, and magenta).
The "problem" was the printer he described had a 25-pin "centronics" cable (also known as 25-pin LPT cable). These printers are very rare today (but according to author, still available).
In general, most every printer is USB these days. So I think we need to find a USB-to-Centronics adapter... if such a thing exists! If so, you could connect most any printer to a CBM with a "centronics" adapter. (i.e., USB Printer -> USB-to-Centronics -> Centronics-to-UserPort). GEOS and some other programs support UserPort printing, but a lot of software only supports serial-bus (IEC) printing... so this idea may be the best solution, it will not work with all software...
Yeah, sorry I didn't answer your question, but hope I provided some info for investigation/comment by all the hardware hackers on this board!
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Post by cbmguy on Oct 3, 2015 0:38:10 GMT
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Post by robertb on Oct 3, 2015 5:09:15 GMT
I've used a Lexmark Optra 40 color inkjet printer and a Lexmark Optra 45 color inkjet printer, both with Postscript 2.0 which GEOS and Wheels can access. FCUG v.p. Roger has used a Hewlett-Packard 9xx color inkjet printer which uses PCL, and GEOS can access it with a HP driver. All the above printers are older models which have parallel ports. Truly, Robert Bernardo Fresno Commodore User Group www.dickestel.com/fcug.htm |
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Post by gsteemso on Oct 3, 2015 7:03:18 GMT
Speaking as the owner of an older but still relatively newish office-grade multifunction printer which it would cost only half as much to REPLACE ENTIRELY as to buy replacement ink cartridges for, my big question is "what acceptably capable printer can you use with an 8-bit Commodore _that you can still get ink for_?"
If it helps, Commodore-serial-bus to Centronics adapters can't possibly be that unusual or hard to get; I myself have at least two of them here, neither of which I sought out. Presumably there are quite a few others floating around any given area that had a good installed Commodore base in the 1980s-1990s.
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Post by 8bitheaven on Oct 3, 2015 14:22:31 GMT
The problem that I had with the HP Deskjet 500 was that the printer resolution could be set to 75 DPI or 300 DPI. So at 75DPI the printout would be at about 2/3 smaller than the screen. It is my understanding that GEOS or Wheels prints at 60 DPI. Even older inkjet printers print at higher resolutions. I do use a serial to parallel adapter.
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Post by robertb on Oct 4, 2015 7:31:27 GMT
"what acceptably capable printer can you use with an 8-bit Commodore _that you can still get ink for_?" If it helps, Commodore-serial-bus to Centronics adapters can't possibly be that unusual or hard to get... It depends what you mean by "acceptably capable". I can still get ink cartridges for my Lexmark Optra's, because all of the Lemark inkjets used the same cartridge, i.e., they were common. Even the HP 932 used by v.p. Roger has ink cartridges that you still can find. For the Optras and the HP, we both use a GEOcable to go directly from the C64/128 user port to the parallel port of the printer. Truly, Robert Bernardo Fresno Commodore User Group www.dickestel.com/fcug.htm |
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Post by robertb on Oct 4, 2015 7:58:09 GMT
So at 75DPI the printout would be at about 2/3 smaller than the screen. It is my understanding that GEOS or Wheels prints at 60 DPI. When using Postscript, GEOS/Wheels (GEOWrite or GEOPublish) will use the full resolution of the Postscript printer. The LW fonts that come with GEOS will be matched to those in the Postscript printer, and then the printer will use those fonts. What you see on the screen will be what you get on paper. When using a font not supported by Postscript or when using GEOPaint, then the GEOS DPI limitation comes into play. There is a way to get past the GEOS DPI limitation if you don't have Postscript printer. You could use GEOS LQ (a.k.a. Perfect Print LQ) which provides a multi-pass drivers. With up to 4 passes, the DPI would go up to 240. The late Dave "Lord Ronin" Mohr of the Anything Commodore User Group of Astoria, Oregon frequently used Perfect Print in the production of his club's newsletters. However, he did say that it used a lot of inkjet ink in the multi-pass process. Truly, Robert Bernardo Fresno Commodore User Group www.dickestel.com/fcug.htm |
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Post by hydrophilic on Oct 5, 2015 17:20:29 GMT
cbmguy, thanks for link to USB to Centronics adapter! Also cool it supports network printers too! gsteemso, I never knew of any serial-bus to Centronics adapter (only user-port adapter). It doesn't surprise me they exist, but could you tell us about the ones you have (or can recommend)? robertb (and others), good point about the DPI issue; never even thought about that! Back in the day, my OkiData 120 printer had an LQ mode that did double pass and gave "virtual" 120 DPI... it was amazing... looked almost ink-jet quality (pretty good for 9-pin dot-matrix)! It actually looked better when using an old printer ribbon! (FYI, a year or so ago, I saw a compatible printer ribbon for sale at local Office Depot; don't remember the actual price, but it was very reasonable [cheaper than ink-jet black ink cartridges]) But yeah, 4 passes in color would be slow and use a lot of ink... Lord Ronin sure was dedicated!
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Post by gsteemso on Oct 8, 2015 22:34:31 GMT
Well, I have specimens of two models here: the Cardco G-Wiz, and the Micro R&D Micrografix. They both come with a variety of DIP switches to adapt to different makes of printer and have small onboard print buffers. Physically, they are a little wider than a standard C64 cartridge and plug straight into the Centronics connector of an old-style PC printer, with a standard Commodore serial cable coming out of the other end. Not sure what else there is to say about them. They're pretty straightforward.
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