Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!rutgers!cbmvax!andy From: andy@cbmvax.UUCP Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: Moronic printer drivers Message-ID: <1332@cbmvax.cbmvax.cbm.UUCP> Date: Tue, 3-Feb-87 11:07:37 EST Article-I.D.: cbmvax.1332 Posted: Tue Feb 3 11:07:37 1987 Date-Received: Wed, 4-Feb-87 04:09:41 EST References: <4175@videovax.Tek.COM> <1366@cadovax.UUCP> Reply-To: andy@cbmvax.UUCP (Andy Finkel) Organization: Commodore Technology, West Chester, PA Lines: 174 In article <1366@cadovax.UUCP> keithd@cadovax.UUCP (PUT YOUR NAME HERE) writes: >In article <4175@videovax.Tek.COM> stever@videovax.Tek.COM (Steven E. Rice, P.E.) writes: >>There is one fly in the ointment, though. When we have selected "JX-80" >AHA! Other people HAVE been having problems. Different problems, however. Steve's problems can be handled by enhancing the printer driver for the epson_jx. His are specific problems/suggestions of things that the driver isn't doing now that, if it did, would result in increased performance. (And he's going to try) >A friend and I have been >exploring some of the printer problems, and are thoroughly confused. We >have learned a few things, but am not sure where many of the problems lie. >They can either be in: > > 1) The printer driver for the particular printer > 2) The printer.device > 3) The application doing the printing > So far so good... >We have been testing on two types of printers basically, a Canon1080a color >ink-jet, and an Epson LQ-800 24 pin high quality dot matrix printer. Neither >printers were in the original Amiga preferences, all drivers were obtained >from Compu$erve. We have the source to the LQ-800 driver, but not to the >Canon driver. > >We've tested printers with 5 packages that are of note: > > 1) Dpaint I > 2) Dpaint II > 3) DeluxePrint > 4) NotePad > 5) PageSetter > >Here are some of the things we've found: > > 1) The slowest APPLICATION is DeluxePrint. Here is where we get the > 30+ minuite print times when using the LQ-800 which has in the NLQ > mode, which provides 1440 dots horizontally. It takes a good 30 > seconds a line. Since I don't have this printer, I'll ask...is this out of line with what it does on other computers ? What is its rated speed ? (1440 dots horizontally on a 24 printer is about 34560 pixels per printer pass or 'line', right ?) As I've said before, if someone wants to send me the driver, I'll take a look at if to see if its doing anything really funny. (BTW, is there a buffer size option on this Epson ? Is it on ?) > > 2) The applications are apparently doing their own re-sampling (I use > this term to mean 're-sizing' the image by 'doubling-up' pixel lines > horizontally and/or vertically or 'dropping-out' such lines in order > to make the image fit the paper 'correctly'. The printer.device has many options, settable by the application program as to what aspecting calculations are made during a graphics dump. What you are saying is that you disagree with the decisions made by the application program authors. Fine. Write the companies. Tell them. Please don't complain about the flexibility of the printer.device, though (which is what you are doing). Flexibility gives the ability to make mistakes, as well as the ability to do it your way. You do know about the dithering that goes on, right ? Selected by preferences, you can choose Grey Scale (dithering) or Black and White (with a threshold selection to decide what is black and what is white) (BTW, re-sampling is a poor choice of term for what you are describing. In your previous posting it sounded like you thought the printer.device was reading the bitmap many times for each pixel) > > Each application seems to be re-sampling DIFFERENTLY. As I said, aspecting is controlled by the way the application calls the printer.device. There are several variables and flag values to control it. > 3) NotePad sizes, 'Small, Medium, and Large' and Auto-Size seem to do > different things with respect to size depending on the printer driver > and current setting of preference margins. Right. If your margins are set full width, small means 1/4 page, medium means 1/2 page, and large means full page, assuming the values in printertag.asm of the driver are set correctly. The margin settings are obeyed, so making the margins smaller will cut down on the width. I can't get Auto-Size to > work AT ALL with the Canon1080a driver I'm using, it just comes back > as if it was done, with no errors and no printout. With the LQ-800 > used with the standard Amiga-supplied Epson driver, 'Small, Medium, > and Large' are all pretty gigantic. I'd check those printertag.asm values if I were you. >Personally, I sure wish these packages would allow me to disable any >resampling at all, and take the hit in the aspect ratio and size. No, you don't. (well, maybe you do) Text is all stretched out when you pick 1 to 1 aspecting. (but if it doesn't look too horrible, maybe I'll put it into Notepad sometime). You could see what it looks like by modifying one of the screen dump programs out there. >And, it sure is a pain to try to 'cancel' a print job, most of these programs >(except Dpaint II) don't provide a print cancel option. It would seem >reasonable to provide this within the printer.device or the OS somewhere >since obviously the Application writers aren't doing it. (Kill -9 anyone?) > One of the big things that the Amiga OS does not provide is resource tracking. (At the time it seemed that the performance hit would be too much). So, while it would be simple to provide a means of killing any arbitrary process (since Exec knows where each one is) the process wouldn't have the resources it took (memory, I/O ports, etc) returned to the system. Only the application knows what resources it owns are finished with when. >So what the hell is going on here? What can a printer driver do to help >fix any of these problems? What can a printer driver be doing that can >cause Auto-Size on the Notepad to do nothing? Notepad autosize says to the printer.driver that it wants the driver to attempt to print a note the same size as the one on the screen. If the values in printertag.asm are incorrect, this might easily lead to being unable to print. I'd have to see the drivers to be sure, as other factors might also be involved. Printertag sounds like the problem though, judging from the rest of your complaints. (it could also be the Render Pixel case in your driver, but this is less likely) > >I've tried patching the DPI on my driver, and do get some changes, but >I don't know how to figure out what I really need to set it to to get >what I want Set the variables in printertag.asm correctly. Putting in funny numbers in attempts to defeat the graphic dump call flag choices of the application won't work very well, and will waste a lot of time. >The Canon has 640 dots horizontally. That seems to imply about 80 dpi. Sound familiar? No matter WHICH >application I use, if it's dumping something that was created on the >screen, it OUGHT to be able to do it without 'doubling' up vertical lines >at random intervals trying to make it 'fit' the page. It can do it if it wants, via the appropriate printer.device call >And though the >Canon vertical DPI is not the same as the horizontal DPI, if I patch the >driver to MAKE them the same, I ought to get no horizontal double-lines >if I'm getting no vertical ones, but that is not the case. I'd rather >stretch the image slightly vertically and not suffer re-sampling distortion >than get a 100% correct aspect ratio MOST OF THE TIME. um, the aspecting isn't random, it follows a (probably fairly standard) algorithm. Why not use one of the screen dump programs available and see if the no-aspecting is what you really want ? > >So ok, Commodore, you laid off your printer driver expert. So what are >you going to do NOW? What are the rest of us going to do NOW? > We didn't lay off the person who wrote most of the graphic drivers. He left on his own to persure fame and fortune as an independent software developer. So, ok, Keith, when are you going to send the source to the drivers you're having trouble with ? And when are you going to to get a screen dump program and start playing with the flags on thecall to dump the screen so you can get a real idea of what's going on ? >Keith Doyle ># {ucbvax,ihnp4,decvax}!trwrb!cadovax!keithd ># cadovax!keithd@ucla-locus.arpa andy finkel -- andy finkel Commodore/Amiga {ihnp4|seismo|allegra}!cbmvax!andy /or/ pyramid!amiga!andy Any expressed opinions are mine; but feel free to share. I disclaim all responsibilities, all shapes, all sizes, all colors. "Never make anything simple and efficient when it can be complex and wonderful."