Printer compatibility with the ST's

[Gunstar]

I'm wondering about printer compatibility. First, I know that most ST software have drivers built-in for Atari&Epson compatible printers, but I'm wondering if most printers, specifically the newer Deskjet/inkjet printers are still generally made to the Epson compatibility standard? Case and point: I recently (today) obtained a Hewlett packard deskjet 340 (intended for portable PC's&Macs, but it was cool looking and dirt cheap, so I got it for my ST. I haven't extensively tested it with any programs yet, just tried to print a text file from the desktop Show/print routine, but the printer just started flashing all it's LEDS and eventually powered down. So I'm asking about compatibility and for sites that may have printer dirvers for download for ST computers, specifically for use with the HewlettPackard deskjets, or similiar. I just remember that years ago Epson printers were the standard and wondered it that was still true...if all I need are Epson drivers. Any help much appreciated.

[RucasRiot]

Well, all I know is basically EVERY dot matrix printer will work with it.

[Paolo]

The printers thing is a bit strange:

in the first times the programs needed to ose their own printer drivers, so you can have better written drivers (or not) on each program you use. I tested a lot of those drivers and I found them working on my epson and hp printers.

Then more complex programs came, with the need of colour outputs and hi-res text and graphics. So NVDI enter the scene.

In newer programs, you don't have to use the old printers' drivers, nor write you own ones (that was possible in some programs), but use NVDI drivers, supporting TONS of printers, including the new ones, with the nicer features provided.

 

BTW, HP printers keep the compatibility back to 550C, so when I have problems (and it is very VERY rare), I use the 550/550C driver with my 970Cxi and everything is great.

 

www.nvdi.de is the place

 

I can't remember if there is anything else for driving printers, I don't really need it.

 

Paolo

[Gunstar]

Thanks for the link, I'll give those drivers a shot.

[LinkoVitch]

I know that some printers don't print untill they see the end of the file, my DeskJet 840C does that. I find normally sending a page feed character after the file flushes it out (if it's raw text). Perhaps this is the prob you saw?

[Lynxpro]

*Necrobump!*

 

I can't remember if I had my HP DeskJet 500C working with my 1040STf or if I used it exclusively with my Falcon030 back in the day. And to think before that I had a Panasonic KX-P 1080i.

 

Found this thread - and I thought it said it was last updated in 2019 after being inspired by watching an LGR video on a Star Micronics dot matrix printer to search for Atari ST drivers for dot matrix printers...

Edited May 22, 2020 by Lynxpro

[Zogging Hell]

Saw that one, I have the nine pin equivalent still (although the ink has long since dried up and the colour ribbons are tough to get hold of). Your 500c will be fine with your ST (depending on drivers for whatever you want to use it with). I used a 660c with Imagecopy for printing colour prints for a couple of years with my ST in the early to mid nineties. It also worked with NVDI and SpeedoGDOS fine, although deskjets were not as compatible with some of the earlier WP and graphics programs as they were with Deskjets. I think Canon inkjets were the best bet at the time as they could emulate a 24 pin Epson dot matrix for a staggering 360dpi print if the program didn't have native drivers.

[Lynxpro]

6 hours ago, Zogging Hell said:

Saw that one, I have the nine pin equivalent still (although the ink has long since dried up and the colour ribbons are tough to get hold of). Your 500c will be fine with your ST (depending on drivers for whatever you want to use it with). I used a 660c with Imagecopy for printing colour prints for a couple of years with my ST in the early to mid nineties. It also worked with NVDI and SpeedoGDOS fine, although deskjets were not as compatible with some of the earlier WP and graphics programs as they were with Deskjets. I think Canon inkjets were the best bet at the time as they could emulate a 24 pin Epson dot matrix for a staggering 360dpi print if the program didn't have native drivers.

 

yeah, my 500C is long gone. I stupidly sold it to a small business around 97 or so and bought one of the newer 600 series printers. What a huge mistake that was. The 500C was built like a tank. One of the guys in the users' group had one of the earliest HP DeskJets and all of us marveled at the color prints it made of screen captures and art work. He was the group's librarian of public domain and shareware software. That was like in 1988 or so. Before that, some folks had the Okidata bubblejets but their quality certainly wasn't at HP's level then.

 

I only used SpeedoGDOS with my Falcon back in the day. I didn't even have regular GDOS for my ST; I still feel Atari Corp let us all down in backtracking on their promise to integrate that directly into TOS ROM and make it available as an upgrade.

[Zogging Hell]

Probably memory constraints on a 520 ST I would guess, every ST would probably need to be upgraded to 1mb to really make it comfortable to work with.

 

I know what you mean with the 600 series, my started producing smudgy prints fairly quickly, and then I had to replace something internally (a ribbon attached to print head) within a short period after. I haven't brought a HP printer since..

[Bikerbob]

Anyone know if a PCL3 printer will work with NVDI?   I have a Deskjet 350 I would like to use.

 

James