On 6/9/2020 12:32 AM, Hugh Hood wrote:

BTW, I also tested the direct connect LaserWriter [PostScript] driver
with the same LaserJet connected by a parallel card in Slot 2, but
the test was inconclusive.

Apparently the Parallel Card driver searches for the proper slot of
the card on its own. Since I have (2) parallel cards in this GS, it
got confused, I suppose. This needs more work as well.

{Disclaimer - I realize this particular subtopic deals with real IIgs'
rather than emulated IIgs', but to keep the methodology all together
I'll post this in this thread}.

OK. I've confirmed that the direct connect PostScript driver works well
with parallel card connections on a real IIgs, which means that even if
you can't find a serial PostScript laser to hook up to your real IIgs,
you should be able to use it with a PostScript laser with a parallel
port, provided you have a parallel card in one of your slots.

I tested with one of the most plain parallel cards ever made - the Epson
APL rev A.

First, I used Apple's 'Parallel Card' port driver from System 6.0.1 and
had success.

Then, I used Vitesse's 'EpsonAPL' port driver from Harmonie and had
success as well.

The advantage of the Vitesse driver is that it is much, much faster. I
used Ewen's BrkDown to disassemble it and noticed that it is speaking to
the parallel card 'bare metal' by writing directly to the $C080+s0
register and checking the 'busy' byte at $CsC1.

The Apple driver uses the card's firmware and the GS/OS toolbox, which I suppose is the 'right' way to do it, albeit with a speed penalty.

The other advantage of the Vitesse port driver is that it doesn't care
whether the card's slot is set to internal or to your card. If it
identifies a parallel card, it will use it. Apple's port driver requires
that the slot be set to your card.

One final note -- I had one 'Teach' document that contained the
copyright (c) high-ascii symbol and it would not print with either
parallel port driver. I trapped the PostScript error and realized that
my Epson APL card was not passing the high bit since I never modified it
to do so. When the high bit is stripped from the copyright symbol, you
get a ')', which is a PostScript operator (in a place where it shouldn't
be).

Normally, ASCII PostScript is supposed to be 7-bit and the high-ascii characters should be escaped by a '\' and their octal number. Apple's LaserWriter driver does not do this out of the box, since AppleTalk
allows passing all 8 bits and the printer recognizes the high-ascii
characters. Unless I rebuild the driver from source, that will be hard
to add, so if you plan to use a parallel port driver with the direct
connect PostScript driver, make sure your parallel card is passing all 8
bits.

At this point, I think the only thing remaining on this driver is the
testing with TreeHugger and TCP/IP, which I _will_ do in GSPort.




Hugh Hood

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On Tuesday, July 7, 2020 at 12:08:34 AM UTC-6, Hugh Hood wrote:

On 6/9/2020 12:32 AM, Hugh Hood wrote:

BTW, I also tested the direct connect LaserWriter [PostScript] driver
with the same LaserJet connected by a parallel card in Slot 2, but
the test was inconclusive.

Apparently the Parallel Card driver searches for the proper slot of
the card on its own. Since I have (2) parallel cards in this GS, it
got confused, I suppose. This needs more work as well.

{Disclaimer - I realize this particular subtopic deals with real IIgs'
rather than emulated IIgs', but to keep the methodology all together
I'll post this in this thread}.

OK. I've confirmed that the direct connect PostScript driver works well
with parallel card connections on a real IIgs, which means that even if
you can't find a serial PostScript laser to hook up to your real IIgs,
you should be able to use it with a PostScript laser with a parallel
port, provided you have a parallel card in one of your slots.

I tested with one of the most plain parallel cards ever made - the Epson
APL rev A.

First, I used Apple's 'Parallel Card' port driver from System 6.0.1 and
had success.

Then, I used Vitesse's 'EpsonAPL' port driver from Harmonie and had
success as well.

The advantage of the Vitesse driver is that it is much, much faster. I
used Ewen's BrkDown to disassemble it and noticed that it is speaking to
the parallel card 'bare metal' by writing directly to the $C080+s0
register and checking the 'busy' byte at $CsC1.

The Apple driver uses the card's firmware and the GS/OS toolbox, which I suppose is the 'right' way to do it, albeit with a speed penalty.

The other advantage of the Vitesse port driver is that it doesn't care whether the card's slot is set to internal or to your card. If it
identifies a parallel card, it will use it. Apple's port driver requires
that the slot be set to your card.

One final note -- I had one 'Teach' document that contained the
copyright (c) high-ascii symbol and it would not print with either
parallel port driver. I trapped the PostScript error and realized that
my Epson APL card was not passing the high bit since I never modified it
to do so. When the high bit is stripped from the copyright symbol, you
get a ')', which is a PostScript operator (in a place where it shouldn't
be).

Normally, ASCII PostScript is supposed to be 7-bit and the high-ascii characters should be escaped by a '\' and their octal number. Apple's LaserWriter driver does not do this out of the box, since AppleTalk
allows passing all 8 bits and the printer recognizes the high-ascii characters. Unless I rebuild the driver from source, that will be hard
to add, so if you plan to use a parallel port driver with the direct
connect PostScript driver, make sure your parallel card is passing all 8 bits.

At this point, I think the only thing remaining on this driver is the
testing with TreeHugger and TCP/IP, which I _will_ do in GSPort.

Hugh Hood

I have to say, Hugh, wow and well done.

Only if you did all this 2 years ago. I got rid of my LaserJet III printers and would have been in awe to have got them working with my Apple IIGS.

But great read and thanks for all your posts.

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On 8/3/2020 12:01 AM, gids.rs@sasktel.net wrote:

Only if you did all this 2 years ago. I got rid of my LaserJet III
printers and would have been in awe to have got them working with my
Apple IIGS.

Thanks for the kind words.

Yes, I wish I had done this a little over 25 years ago, because I've had
a PostScript printer hooked up to my IIGS for that entire time, and
since it wasn't AppleTalk/LocalTalk, it was useless for PostScript
printing from the print dialog in GS/OS apps.

Although the Direct PostScript printer driver is now tested and ready to
be released, I'd like to optimize and test the Windows ncat scripts
(required for direct printing to a networked printer from both 8-bit and
16-bit apps in the GSPort emulator) before I put everything out there on
my website.

But, if someone has a PostScript printer and would like just the driver, contact me and I'll send it.




Hugh Hood

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