Software for 1020 Plotter

[Tonyscouter]

Aside from the "Print & Draw" program are there any other software packages that support the 1020 plotter?  I was disappointed to find out that the AtariLab Starter Set did not support the 1020.  I thought drawing out the "time vs. temperature curves" would be ideal for the 1020.  What programs do others use with the 1020?

[_The Doctor__]

There's and idea Tony.

You could write a set up utilities that would be ideal for labs and the 1020. Nice!

[jamm]

Something that takes advantage of the fact that the 1020 uses a roll of paper instead of individual sheets.  Like a seismograph.

Edited April 29, 2020 by jamm

[+Stephen]

Lie detector program

[Irgendwer]

Back then I've created two programs for the 1020 and improved another one:

• Banner printer, similar to "The Print Shop" you can enter messages and border styles. Unfortunately I browsed already through my disks, but found only an old incomplete version.
• Scan program. You exchange a pen with a light dependent resistor and feed a photography into the printer or glued it on the paper (still have this programm on my disks) - any interest to upload this?
• Once there was a program in a German magazine to print bitmap hard-copies with the 1020 (every pixel is a small rectangle). Improved this a lot (optimizing number of pen changes, different sizes, free color assignment) - have to browse my collection for that

AFAIR all applications were written in TurboBasic.

 

[StickJock]

I picked up a 1020 around 1984-1985.  I remember getting replacement pens at Radio Shack.

 

Anyway, I wrote simple programs to do the usual spirograph-type plots, printing things out in super tiny font size, etc.

 

I also wrote a program to plot out pictures.  IIRC, you could assign each screen color to one of 16 printer colors.  For colors other than the pure RGB+Black, it would replot with multiple colors (from memory, R+G=brown).  I plotted out a grid of the 16 colors to help me pick the ones that matched the screen best.

 

I printed out a lot of pics from various games.  I remember modifying the Translator disk so that I could press a key (I think it was actually a combo of console keys) and have the ram dumped out to floppy.  I would load the modified translator on my 130XE, then run a game.  When the screen I wanted to print appeared, I would press the magic key combo which would then dump the RAM.  Then I could look at the dump to find the display list and screen RAM to get the pic that I wanted. 

 

Man, I hadn't thought about that for 35 years!

 

[invisible kid]

As others have said you can write BASIC programs that use it, I think that's how I got the most fun out of mine.

[+bob1200xl]

I wrote a simple Basic program that prints a PCB. Made a 320XE memory upgrade board with it. This was back in the tape-up 4:1 days.

 

I found an 8-inch printer that used the same command set as the 1020. Same ink cartridges. Still packed in a box somewhere.

 

Bob

 

[_The Doctor__]

12 minutes ago, bob1200xl said:

I wrote a simple Basic program that prints a PCB. Made a 320XE memory upgrade board with it. This was back in the tape-up 4:1 days.

 

I found an 8-inch printer that used the same command set as the 1020. Same ink cartridges. Still packed in a box somewhere.

 

Bob

 

was that a sharp printer?

8 inch pen plotter is what should have been all the way along :)

[+Allan]

Here's a screen dump utility for the 1020. Written by the guys a wrote B/Graph

 

http://www.atarimania.com/utility-atari-400-800-xl-xe-atari-1020-color-printer-screen-print-software_30231.html

 

Here is the manual for it.

 

https://archive.org/details/Atari1020ColorPrinterScreenPrintSoftware/mode/2up

 

Here is another 1020 program written by the same guys. The manual should be on side b of the disk.

 

http://www.atarimania.com/utility-atari-400-800-xl-xe-screen-plot_30586.html

 

Allan

 

[ACML]

Back around 1986, I wrote a BASIC program to read Graphics 9 pictures from a ComputerEyes scanner.  It printed in black and white simulating gray scale by using various density 2x8 pixel patterns.  It took a long time to print a Graphics 9 screen, but it looked fairly good.  Today, it would probably kill a 35 year old 1020 mechanism before it could finish a plot.  The software sadly is lost when I dumped a lot of disks in a landfill in 2004.  What's that line from the Montgomery Gentry song "Gone like a '59 Cadillac". 

[+CharlieChaplin]

Well, I do not own a 1020 plotter. But here is some simple/small software for the 1020 that I collected on several disks (you have to dig through that chaos)...

 

 

Atari_1020.zip

[Peri Noid]

In order not to create a new topic I'll post my question here.

 

Do you know if Atari Logo supports a 1020 plotter? Drawing with a turle seems so obvious and natural...

[+CharlieChaplin]

See my attachment Atari_1020.zip above - you can find a demo written for+in Logo language on disk A...

 

[Peri Noid]

Thanks!