Re: Dummy printer

[Gary S. Terhune]

Reading the thread on problems printing from DOS under XP, I found the
following:
http://www.dosprn.com/

Looks like it should do what Jerry wants. Oh, I see you already got to that
one. OK, I'll just go ahead and go to my doctor's appointment. Everything
seems under control here, <s>.

--
Gary S. Terhune
MS-MVP Shell/User
www.grystmill.com

"Brian A." <gonefish'n@afarawaylake> wrote in message
news:OsZLgGa5HHA.5980@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
> Instead of my mumble jumble, have a look-see here:
> http://www1.itrc.hp.com/service/jam...p.com&admit=-682735245+1187885973664+28353475
>
> or: http://tinyurl.com/235suz
>
> --
>
>
> Brian A. Sesko { MS MVP_Shell/User }
> Conflicts start where information lacks.
> http://basconotw.mvps.org/
>
> Suggested posting do's/don'ts: http://www.dts-l.org/goodpost.htm
> How to ask a question: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375
>
>
> "Gary S. Terhune" <none> wrote in message
> news:eMTXv3Z5HHA.1204@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
>> My fuzziness... I figure if you want to print from DOS, you need DOS
>> print drivers. I wouldn't expect modern printers to be able to do that,
>> though I don't understand DOS printing all that well, not at all, in
>> fact. Does an app just send the data to the LPT port? What converts it to
>> PRN?
>>
>> My color laser printers (HP4550 and Konika-Minolta 3300) both take PS and
>> PCL. Do they first convert it to PCL? My understanding is that they could
>> handle both PS and PCL directly, without converting.
>>
>> --
>> Gary S. Terhune
>> MS-MVP Shell/User
>> www.grystmill.com
>>
>> "Brian A." <gonefish'n@afarawaylake> wrote in message
>> news:emA3JtZ5HHA.2208@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
>>> I don't think DOS drivers are the problem, the problem is printing from
>>> DOS to a USB printer and USB is supported in DOS. Frank has posted what
>>> the OP needs to do, set the printer as shared and direct the LPT1 port,
>>> which is supported in DOS, to the printer via the net use command.
>>>
>>> --
>>>
>>>
>>> Brian A. Sesko { MS MVP_Shell/User }
>>> Conflicts start where information lacks.
>>> http://basconotw.mvps.org/
>>>
>>> Suggested posting do's/don'ts: http://www.dts-l.org/goodpost.htm
>>> How to ask a question: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375
>>>
>>>
>>> "Gary S. Terhune" <none> wrote in message
>>> news:eizgGnY5HHA.1484@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
>>>> But do they have DOS drivers? Honest, I don't know much about this
>>>> aspect, and my laser printers are at the other house.
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Gary S. Terhune
>>>> MS-MVP Shell/User
>>>> www.grystmill.com
>>>>
>>>> "Brian A." <gonefish'n@afarawaylake> wrote in message
>>>> news:eypa7rU5HHA.3716@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
>>>>> I don't know about the OP's laser printer, but all of my printers
>>>>> here have the option "Print to file" which does save it as a .prn
>>>>> file.
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Brian A. Sesko { MS MVP_Shell/User }
>>>>> Conflicts start where information lacks.
>>>>> http://basconotw.mvps.org/
>>>>>
>>>>> Suggested posting do's/don'ts: http://www.dts-l.org/goodpost.htm
>>>>> How to ask a question: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> "Gary S. Terhune" <none> wrote in message
>>>>> news:OnKgwxT5HHA.5360@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
>>>>>> The man needs to print to file (a PRN file, I think, not text file)
>>>>>> from a DOS app, something that he can then send to the printer from
>>>>>> Windows. Generic Text to File won't help. Unfortunately, Jerry knows
>>>>>> more about it than I or most others here do.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Hey, Jerry... I have a couple of old dot matrix printers... or maybe
>>>>>> my Dad has them now. Might be the simplest solution to find a used
>>>>>> one, not that it's that simple, <g>. You still have an LPT port?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> Gary S. Terhune
>>>>>> MS-MVP Shell/User
>>>>>> www.grystmill.com
>>>>>>
>>>>>> "RobertVA" <robert_c72athotmail@invalid.com> wrote in message
>>>>>> news:%231dG0lT5HHA.3900@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
>>>>>>> Jerry Bank wrote:
>>>>>>>> In article <uGTPy5J5HHA.3916@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl>,
>>>>>>>> JRichards@msn.com.au says...
>>>>>>>>> You requirement is not quite clear. Does the file you are
>>>>>>>>> creating have to be a print file for a particular type of printer?
>>>>>>>>> This would a file that you then transfer to another machine that
>>>>>>>>> has that type of printer attached, and copy to that printer in
>>>>>>>>> order to print it.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Or are you trying to use a print procedure to create a certain
>>>>>>>>> document type, such as plain text or postscript or PDF?
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Let me explain precisely what I am trying to do. I have an ancient
>>>>>>>> dos program that I use to do accounting for a very small business.
>>>>>>>> I would like to continue using it. However, while it was able to
>>>>>>>> print its reports to my old dot-matrix printer, it really can't
>>>>>>>> handle my current laser printer.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> The program itself only prints to lpt1. Previously I used the
>>>>>>>> simple program prn2dos, which sent the printing to a file, which I
>>>>>>>> then edited and printed out in Windows. Since upgrading my
>>>>>>>> computer it no longer works.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I have been trying to find a way to do this task. I did find a
>>>>>>>> program called dos2usb, but it only works erratically.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I would very much appreciate any suggestions as to how I can solve
>>>>>>>> this problem.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Thanks.
>>>>>>> Have your tried installing the Generic Text to file "printer"
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> You would only need to click a file name and press the "Enter" key
>>>>>>> when the file name dialog appears.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>

 

[RobertVA]

Gary S. Terhune wrote:
> My fuzziness... I figure if you want to print from DOS, you need DOS print
> drivers. I wouldn't expect modern printers to be able to do that, though I
> don't understand DOS printing all that well, not at all, in fact. Does an
> app just send the data to the LPT port? What converts it to PRN?
>
> My color laser printers (HP4550 and Konika-Minolta 3300) both take PS and
> PCL. Do they first convert it to PCL? My understanding is that they could
> handle both PS and PCL directly, without converting.
>

Most DOS programs sent the data directly to the printer port. IF the
application was designed to do ANY text formating the application had to
include code for various printer manufacturer specific data sequences to
control things like bold face, italic and fonts. Unless the page was
rendered as a full sheet graphic image, font heights for dot matrix
printers were limited to the print head height and a line of text would
be constrained to a single band of the print head's output. Many dot
matrix printers would only print text in portrait orientation.

Many applications printed text as streams of control codes for things
like italics, bold face and underline mixed with the actual ASCII codes
for the document text. The data stream on the printer port would have
resembled a word processing application's storage file format.

A couple of popular printer brands were the subject of frequent
emulation by other brands. This emulation was accomplished entirely in
the the printer. Thus the application would be set to print on an
standard Epson dot matrix printer model while some other brand of
printer with Epson emulation capabilities was actually attached to the
physical LPT1: port. Laser printers typically emulated a Hewlett Packard
Laserjet II. Printing complex pages on a laser printer typically
required a couple of Megabyte of RAM in the printer for font downloads
OR image rasters, which could exceed a MB for a 8.5"X 11" page. Some
users utilized a ROM font cartrage in the printer to alleviate the font
download requirements. Many laser printers did have some nifty abilities
for portrait orientation output including a reduced size emulation of
14" wide line printer output.