PHP1900 Thermal Printer emulator and other printer emulators

[FSword7]

Does anyone plan to implement PHP1900 thermal printer emulation into MAME/MESS or so similar TI-99 emulator and would generate PDF files as printouts?

 

Also I learned that HX1000 plotter is based on ALPS DPG1302 plotter like Commodore 1520 and Atari 1020. Does anyone implement HX1000 plotter emulation for Hexbus interface?

 

I am researching about printer emulators for several hours but was unable find many printer emulators like in MAME/MESS, etc so far.  However, I found some technical manuals for Epson MX80, FX80 and LQ500 series and that is possible to implement printer emulation with firmware ROM images.  TI-99/4A Impact dot matrix printer is based on MX80 printer. Also I noticed that someone was working in MX80 emulator with firmware images but never finished it...

 

I downloaded some MX80, FX80 and LQ500 technical manual PDF files and MX80 firmware images.  Does anyone have FX80, FX85, FX100, FX105 and LQ500/1000 firmware images?

 

Does anyone have JX80/JX100 technical manual and firmware images?

 

Thanks,

Tim

[+Lee Stewart]

Regarding printing to PDF files, there is a lot of information in these TIPI threads here and here. Some of the information probably starts earlier in those threads, but the posts cited are a good start. There is a lot of digression, but a lot of good information that should be of interest and also encouraging for eventual answers to your questions.

 

...lee.

[Tursi]

I've been keeping an eye on this project for future use...  

https://github.com/RWAP/PrinterToPDF

[+mizapf]

9 hours ago, FSword7 said:

Does anyone plan to implement PHP1900 thermal printer emulation into MAME/MESS or so similar TI-99 emulator and would generate PDF files as printouts?

There are obviously some activities to emulate dot matrix printers in MAME (see https://github.com/mamedev/mame/tree/master/src/devices/bus/centronics),  but they look like early concepts and skeleton drivers. I am quite sure that eventually someone will come up with a proper emulation, sooner or later. It is not on my list, though.

 

(I am not talking about writing characters into a text file; we already have that for a long time.)

[+jedimatt42]

On 1/5/2020 at 11:37 PM, Tursi said:

I've been keeping an eye on this project for future use...  

https://github.com/RWAP/PrinterToPDF

This is the Epson emulation I integrated into TIPI.

 

Maybe a good structure for other printer command sets. How unique was the TI thermal printer? If it mostly supported terminal codes output might already work.

 

-M@

[FSword7]

On 1/6/2020 at 6:21 AM, mizapf said:

There are obviously some activities to emulate dot matrix printers in MAME (see https://github.com/mamedev/mame/tree/master/src/devices/bus/centronics),  but they look like early concepts and skeleton drivers. I am quite sure that eventually someone will come up with a proper emulation, sooner or later. It is not on my list, though.

 

(I am not talking about writing characters into a text file; we already have that for a long time.)

 

Thanks I now found printer emulation files (EX800, LQ800 and LQ810) in MAME/MESS but they were recently created as skeleton files for printer emulation development.

 

Also I analyzed schematics and some documents in MX80 technical manual, 8155 PIC manual, MCS-48 processor manual and UPI-41 manual.  8039/8049 processor does not use internal ROM but only uses external ROM chips to run. There are two options of ROM chips - 4K 2332 ROM chip or 6K 2716 EPROM chips (for Graftrax-80 and Graftrax Plus).  It uses UPI-41 (Intel 8041) slave processor to control stepper motors for printer head movement and paper feed advancing and 8155 PIC to listen pulses from stepper motors (8155 PA register) and sent data to printer head to impact on papers. Write PB register and PC4 register on 8155 to impact dots on paper.  That is easy to implement printer emulation.  MCS 48 series can only access up to 4K space.

FX80/FX100 models and later now uses uPD7810 processor and UPI-42 slave processor for larger firmware beyond 4K space limitation.  Star Gemini 10X/15X printers use same processor as well because I had Gemini 10X printer and had seen alien-looking processor. That must be 7810 processor.

 

Does anyone have a copy of Graftrax Plus ROM images for MX80/MX100? Does anyone have a copy of 2332 firmware image for MX100 printer?  There are three options of firmware images - regular, Graftrax-80 (for TRS-80 computers) and Graftrax Plus.

 

Also I am still looking for FX80/FX100, JX80 (color dot matrix printer) and LQ500/LQ1500 ROM images to implement printer emulation on my own emulator.

 

I am talking about writing characters and graphics data into PDF files and display activity on rendering display as well.  Some time ago, I made modifies on plotting library (from 99er magazine) to print graphics image on my Gemini 10X printer instead of display without interrupting BASIC program.

 

Tim

[kl99]

There is TI99 Print, a Printer Server by Fred Kaal, released in his Projects Section.

http://www.ti99-geek.nl/

[FSword7]

17 hours ago, kl99 said:

There is TI99 Print, a Printer Server by Fred Kaal, released in his Projects Section.

http://www.ti99-geek.nl/

Thanks for info but I want to emulate different printer and plotter with PDF printouts with socket link or COM device from emulators. For example, take a look on screenshots from HercPrt.

 

http://www.softdevlabs.com/hercprt.html

 

[+acadiel]

I'm trying to get ahold of a Thermal Printer.  I want to look at the way the printhead is hooked up, what kind it is, what it supports, etc.  We might end up being able to use the DSR and another thermal head to cobble a "Thermal printer 2.0".