Printed from a Windows Atari 800 Emulator?

[ballyalley]

Is there a way to print to a virtual dot matrix printer using the newest version of Altirra (currently 3.9.0)?  I'm trying to print from Print Shop.  I asked this question in a Print Shop thread I started yesterday, but I figure this deserves a thread of its own.  Here's the Print Shop thread, if you're interested:

 

https://atariage.com/forums/topic/324752-print-shop-atari-related-graphics

 

It doesn't appear that Altirra supports a method to print to any kind of virtual dot matrix printer.

 

In the thread, someone mentioned that Atari800MacX supports printing to a pdf.  I download the latest version of the Atari800 emulator for Windows (atari800-4.2.0-win32-sdl) from here:

 

https://atari800.github.io/

 

I installed it, but it doesn't seem to support printing either-- then again, all options seem to require command line switches, so maybe I'm overlooking it.

 

Surely, there must be an easy way to print, at least, B&W graphics from an emulator using Windows.

 

Adam

[Rybags]

I don't think so - fairly sure all of the patched in print capture/virtual devices in emulators just do simple Ascii, or at the most will capture the raw data as text but not do any print processing on it e.g. to produce bitmap, resized or custom characters.

[oo7]

Hmm print to pdf would be nice. Maybe a future altirra feature after it being seen here lol

[bfollowell]

Print to pdf would be nice. I know the FujiNet does it with real hardware. I'm really surprised that Altirra, with its myriad of options, features, and unbelievable number of built-in emulated devices, has no emulated printers. Of course, I'm not the developer and I'm not a coder, so that's easy for me to say I guess.

 

Maybe one day.

 

[Cheshire Noir]

MAME has been doing a LOT of work with printers recently. 

8bit Apples - Apple I, II, /// and the 16 bit GS - Forums (bannister.org)

I wonder if any of it can be leveraged out for this task...

[oo7]

1 hour ago, bfollowell said:

Print to pdf would be nice. I know the FujiNet does it with real hardware. I'm really surprised that Altirra, with its myriad of options, features, and unbelievable number of built-in emulated devices, has no emulated printers. Of course, I'm not the developer and I'm not a coder, so that's easy for me to say I guess.

 

Maybe one day.

 

Im sure Avery can do it if he has the want and time, i wonder if fujinet code cant help as well.

 

 

I should look that it doesn’t already do something along the lines…

[baktra]

We are basically speaking of a dot matrix printer emulation with pdf output. Emulators of Epson printers exist for Windows to support leacy DOS apps. Perhaps if the output of the application can be directed to a H: device and then passed to the printer emulator.

[zzip]

There are external tools like this that can take Epson Dot Matrix output and convert to PDF:

https://www.retroprinter.com/epson-escp2-conversion-software-release/

[Irgendwer]

Just (again) for completeness and to state, that I have much better experience redirecting printer output with "Atari++":

 

 

 

Edited September 10, 2021 by Irgendwer

[ballyalley]

1 hour ago, Irgendwer said:

Just (again) for completeness and to state, that I have much better experience redirecting printer output with "Atari++":

 

I watched your video and this looks to be what I'm trying to do: print to a file.  What format is the PRT file?  I looked up "Atari++" using Google.  Um.  I couldn't find anything about it.  Is it an emulator?  In this video, the emulator seems to be running on an ST.  Is that right?  I have next-to-no skills with that platform.

 

Somehow, I thought that printing to a dot-matrix printer would be a simple task.  Alas, I fear it is not that simple.

 

Adam

[+CharlieChaplin]

Instead of Google, choose Atari Age forum search and you will find Atari++ very fast.

 

 

[ballyalley]

1 minute ago, CharlieChaplin said:

Instead of Google, choose Atari Age forum search and you will find Atari++ very fast.

 

Nope, that doesn't work for me either.  I'm afraid that both the Google and AtariAge search engine is ignoring the ++ (even when I put it in quotes, like this "Atari++").  I just get results for Atari, which basically gives me infinite posts.  Could someone please provide a few specific links related to Atari++ to get me started?  Or maybe just an explanation: what is Atari++.

 

Adam

[+CharlieChaplin]

6 minutes ago, ballyalley said:

 

Nope, that doesn't work for me either.  I'm afraid that both the Google and AtariAge search engine is ignoring the ++ (even when I put it in quotes, like this "Atari++").  I just get results for Atari, which basically gives me infinite posts.  Could someone please provide a few specific links related to Atari++ to get me started?  Or maybe just an explanation: what is Atari++.

 

Adam

 

Already added above. Or go to the Atari++ homepage:

http://www.xl-project.com/

 

[zzip]

19 minutes ago, ballyalley said:

In this video, the emulator seems to be running on an ST.  Is that right?  I have next-to-no skills with that platform.

No, it looks like he is using an Atari ST emulator to preview the print file (with GemView).   I'm guessing this is an optional step?

[ballyalley]

18 minutes ago, CharlieChaplin said:

[...] go to the Atari++ homepage: http://www.xl-project.com/

 

Thanks for the link.  The Atari++ emulator seems to be geared toward Unix-based systems, however there does seems to be a pre-compiled binary of Windows 32-bit systems.  I'll give it a try over the weekend.

 

Adam

[Irgendwer]

7 hours ago, ballyalley said:

What format is the PRT file?

Just a plain dump of printer data redirected to a file.

7 hours ago, zzip said:

No, it looks like he is using an Atari ST emulator to preview the print file (with GemView).   I'm guessing this is an optional step?

In the beginning 90's I wrote an ESC/P loading module for the Atari ST image viewer "GEM-View". In the video "GEM-View" runs indeed in an Atari-ST emulator.

It shows more a proof-of-concept while Atari++ redirects the printer output to the PC file system and from there the ST emulator with GEM-View loads it again and interprets the data.

Of course someone could write a native (PDF-) printer driver for PC doing a similar task, but I think the requirement is quite exotic nowadays, so I'm not motivated to do so.