jmccorm Posted January 21, 2018 Share Posted January 21, 2018 NOT PRINT SHOP (PRO) or NEWSROOM: A program with lots of fonts (standard fonts as well as stylized fonts) that allowed you to print fairly ordinary text documents on a dot-matrix printer. It achieves close to letter-quality (daisy wheel) print (and with regular sized characters or close to it) by taking advantage of 1/144th line feeds. It takes multiple passes at printing each standard row of text, slightly advancing with each pass. The output was outstanding for the day and the technology. The software would have been available as of the late 1980s. I don't think it had a GUI, WYSIWYG, or any mandatory graphical mock-up. Perhaps had many font disks, or at least many font files. Was unlikely to be a famous cross-platform product. Any ideas on this one? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted January 21, 2018 Share Posted January 21, 2018 Daisy-Dot II. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted January 21, 2018 Share Posted January 21, 2018 (edited) Can't think of it's name but it also did graphics in black and white near phot quality, I beat the crap out of a panasonic printer using it, the smell of hot printer mech and ribbon just came back to me edit- not sure if it was daisy dot.... did daisy do photos? Edited January 21, 2018 by _The Doctor__ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jmccorm Posted January 21, 2018 Author Share Posted January 21, 2018 Daisy-Dot II. NAILED IT. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted January 21, 2018 Share Posted January 21, 2018 FJC for the WIN, as usual, I'm late to the buzzer! SO what does he win? What grand cash and prizes await? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted January 21, 2018 Share Posted January 21, 2018 It was a truly superb program, and it's a shame I never got to try version 3 before I stopped using the A8 for word processing in the late 90s. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Nezgar Posted January 22, 2018 Share Posted January 22, 2018 Daisy dot II - vaguely remember I had a copy of that! Could it interpret AtariWriter+ files? I remember using an epson 9-pin driver, on the mac emulator (spectre gcr) on the ST that would do at least 3 passes for very nice looking printed documents. Especially with vector fonts. Best you could get without a laser printer! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DavidMil Posted January 22, 2018 Share Posted January 22, 2018 Funny, but this thread made me remember that someone created a plug-in cartridge that was made for a HP LaserJet II that would allow some Atari programs to print to the LaserJet II. To the best of my memory it was about $200 or $300 dollars (I guess that's why it never went over too big). DavidMil Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+bob1200xl Posted January 22, 2018 Share Posted January 22, 2018 HP made a cart for the DeskJet that emulated an Epson printer - the Atari could print to that. You could also print HP specific commands (PCL) from the Atari, giving you lots of trick printout options on DeskJets and LaserJets. I still print checks, labels and such this way on my 1200XL. Bob 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted January 22, 2018 Share Posted January 22, 2018 Daisy dot II - vaguely remember I had a copy of that! Could it interpret AtariWriter+ files? It could handle the output of any Word Processor capable of printing to disk. You'd insert the DD-II formatting codes (preceded with a backslash, IIRC), print the file to disk, then DD-II took over. The drawback was that DD-II had no control over line-breaks or pagination, so you had to plan ahead regarding font pitch and line length, etc. Daisy-Dot III promised to deal with those issues via a built-in text formatter, rendering the word processor's printing functionality redundant. I guess print previews and managing pagination in the WP would be a little more difficult, but in any case I never got the chance to try out DD-III since I'd gotten rid of the dot-matrix printer by then and the Atari followed not long afterwards. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toddtmw Posted January 23, 2018 Share Posted January 23, 2018 Funny, but this thread made me remember that someone created a plug-in cartridge that was made for a HP LaserJet II that would allow some Atari programs to print to the LaserJet II. To the best of my memory it was about $200 or $300 dollars (I guess that's why it never went over too big). DavidMil Maybe you have one in your attic? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DavidMil Posted January 23, 2018 Share Posted January 23, 2018 Maybe you have one in your attic? Very good! The X got off with the LJII (I got the 1027). I'm not sure if we had one or not. I didn't do a lot of word processing like she did. Plus that was a long time ago, and there is NO WAY I'm going to call her and ask!!! David Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lbaeza Posted January 24, 2018 Share Posted January 24, 2018 I still print checks, labels and such this way on my 1200XL. Bob Hi Bob What programs do you use for those matters? Regards, Louis BQ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+bob1200xl Posted January 24, 2018 Share Posted January 24, 2018 I use BASIC (XL). The HP printers have a ton of internal fonts in a wide range of sizes. You just select a font, orientation, and X-Y location on the page. Enter the data directly into the BASIC statements and RUN. Not very sophisticated, but it always works. I found that my PC only worked until the next 'upgrade', then something or other would go haywire. Bob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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