Date   : Sat, 17 Mar 2007 22:30:06 -0000
From   : BBCMailingList@... (Ian Wolstenholme)
Subject: BBC compatible dot matrix printer with 2 ribbons

I have successfully used a Brother HL2070 printer with a BBC micro,
but not the HL2040, the difference being that the HL2070 supports
Printer Command Language emulation and the HL2040 doesn't.  Before
this I used an OKI OL300ex which also supports PCL emulation.

I have several Inter-Word templates set up for use with the printer,
for A4 letter, A5 letter, envelope, cheque, blank document etc. which are
all stored in a ROM Filing System ROM so I can call them up whenever I
need them.

I can't remember the exact sequence used but I think you have to send
a set of codes to put the printer into PCL emulation mode and then
you can send PCL commands for page size, orientation, margins, pitch, strike
density etc (assuming you want to change any of this from the printer's
default setting).

The escape sequences for these effects and things like bold, underline
and italic are longer and a bit more complex than some of the older
dot-matrix printers but I found plenty of references on the web giving
lists of sequences to use.

The good thing about using Inter-Word is that you can programme the
codes in on the printer codes menu and after that it is transparent to
the user, you just use shift F4, F5, and F6 to select underline, bold and
italic and Inter-Word sends the codes when you print.   Additionally
you can embed control codes anywhere in a document to achieve effects
such as changing the font size part way through a document, or using
a different typeface if the printer has resident fonts.

As a general rule, as long as the printer has its own "brains", as has
been said by others, which you can discover from the manual by checking
such things as PCL support, ability to print from MS-DOS, resident fonts
stored in the printer, and it has a parallel or serial port on it, then it
should be possible to get it working with Beebs.  A printer with USB only
which can only understand Windows isn't going to be much use!

Best wishes,



Ian

----- Original Message -----
From: Sprow [mailto:info@...]
To: bbc-micro@...
Sent: Sat, 17 Mar 2007 16:54:48 +0000 (GMT)
Subject: Re: [BBC-Micro] BBC compatible dot matrix printer with 2 ribbons

In article <45FC1A88.4060004@...>,
   Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk@...> wrote:

> > I've got a DeskJet 1120c lying around that has a Centronics connector.
>
> Hmm, are you sure they aren't from the modern generation of cheap printers 
> which essentially assemble an image of the page on the host computer

Page 23 of the manual on HP's website mentions it understands PCL 3, and has
2MB of onboard RAM which suggests it's got brains of its own. Another clue
is that it supports printing under DOS and they refer you to an older model
for a suitable driver for DOS programs.

It should be perfectly possible to get it to print to it from a BBC, you
just need to send it the magic burble of escape codes to switch it into text
only mode. I just grabbed a Deskjet 850C driver and it uses:

?E?&l1H?&l26A?&k0G?&l0o6d0l0E?(0N?(s0p10h12v0s0b3T?)0N?)s0p10h12v0s3b3T?&l65F?&a3R?&a0C

where '#' is character 27.

The trick is to print from a Windows program which doesn't do fancy text,
Notepad maybe, create a new document with some known text "hello" for
example, print to file via the driver, open the ".prn" file and look for
your known text, and rip off the stuff preceding it,
Sprow.


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