Better printing support
jzatarski opened this issue · comments
RespeQt has simple printer emulation which also allows translation from ATASCII to ASCII. This emulation seems to work well. Support for specific printers is possible. There are three distinct types of printers which could be emulated: text, raster-graphics, and plotting printers. In addition, printing to file should be emulated, in both raw and translated output formats. On linux and possible OSX, this alone would allow printing to a real printer, depending on the printer's configuration. On windows, more support will likely be necessary before printing directly to a real printer would be possible.
Atari released a number of text only printers, from the 820, to the 1029, and the XDM121, etc. Some of these printers were direct connect SIO printers which actually 'spoke' SIO and allowed different printing styles specified in the command via, for example, the two auxiliary bytes. Others were generic repackaged printers which were either barely SIO, or not SIO at all (such as the 825). These support certain escape sequences to change the type style.
Atari did not release any raster-graphics printers for the 8 bit computers, to my knowledge. If this is wrong, correct me. However, it was not uncommon for other graphics capable printers to be used on the Atari via a Centronics port adapter. One such printer was the Epson MX-80, and other ESC/P command set printers. These should be possible to emulate. For output format, PDF may work. Otherwise, simple image formats may work.
Lastly, Atari released the 1020 plotter-printer which printed by drawing with a pen. It allowed text to be drawn by a built in font, as well as allowing drawing by various escape sequences. The output format for this printer could be .svg.
'Viewers' for the non-text printers may be more complex. As a start, file output for the raster graphics and plotting printers could be the only option, for the sake of simplicity and for proving the feature.
The Atari 1029 is a raster graphics printer.
Unfortunately, I don't know if I still have the manual for the printer.
If somebody can get me copy of the manual, I would be thinking about getting involved into this enhancement.