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From: perl@rdin.UUCP (Robert Perlberg)
Newsgroups: net.micro.trs-80,net.micro.pc
Subject: Printer drivers (Re: Tandycentricity)
Message-ID: <514@rdin.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 17-Dec-85 13:31:53 EST
Article-I.D.: rdin.514
Posted: Tue Dec 17 13:31:53 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 20-Dec-85 01:51:32 EST
References: <13850@rochester.UUCP> <582@moncol.UUCP>
Organization: Resource Dynamics Inc., New York
Lines: 23
Xref: watmath net.micro.trs-80:538 net.micro.pc:6276

>   Is it such a hardship for software companies to either include Tandy
>printer drivers in the generic versions or for Tandy to allow some
>non-Tandy drivers to be included with the Tandy versions of a program? (I
>should stop at this point and thank Quicksoft for including support for
>Tandy's DMP series of printers in PC-WRITE.)

Maybe UNIX has just spoiled me, but I don't see why the designers of
TRSDOS or MS-DOS couldn't have allowed for printer drivers to be part
of the operating system so that no program would have to know how to
use a certain printer.  The communication between the programs and the
printer drivers would be via a standard protocol (ala termcap) and all
you would need is one driver for your printer and all programs, however
obtained, would work with it.  Not only would this make things easier
for the user, it would relieve developers from having to write a
zillion printer drivers when they could be spending that time and
effort improving the functionality of the programs.

Am I out of line here or what?

Robert Perlberg
Resource Dynamics Inc.
New York
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