USB printer driver project

[Perdrix24]

I made a video of my USB printer driver in development: https://youtu.be/PEdCHE_xrZY

I was happy to see it working! It's a driver in the same family than the existing mouse, keyboard and mass storage drivers for NetUSBee and Lightning VME.

In the video, the driver reads the file output from NVDI or ImageCopy, and transfers it to the USB printer. In the finished product, the printing will be seamless : issue "Print" and the pages are printed. This will be accomplished by polling for the file, transfer it to the printer, then delete it. The driver will be loaded from the AUTO folder, as usual.

[TheNameOfTheGame]

Very nice!

[itaboy]

Quite interesting! Very nice work

[mpattonm]

Incredible!

[czietz]

Impressive.

[frank.lukas]

A normal GDOS or Speedo would work too, or not?

[PeterS]

Fantastic, one of the things on my most desired list.

Can I do any Milan "testing" ?

[dbsys]

Wonderful!

[Kroll]

Fantastic !

[Atarieterno]

Finally someone accepted the challenge! excellent job, congratulations.

[wongck]

Wow great news just in time for Christmas.

[simonsunnyboy]

This is a great project and finally something to give the Netusbee more credibility on its USB part.
The driver seems to be for TOS. Will it also work for smaller systems, e.q. 1MB STF?

Even if it is without NVDI, would a passthrough for PCL or ESC/P to the USB port be feasible so that any TOS application could print? (Not only VDI based ones)

[dhedberg]

Great initiative!

[Perdrix24]

Thanks all for your encouragements. The driver will take any printer file that is compatible with the printer language. And that's going to be the greatest challenge, finding current USB printers that are compatible with NVDI 5 or ImageCopy. So I prepared the attached ZIP for you to test on a PC, with printers that you have access.

You can use spool on a PC to easily transfer the test files to a printer: https://www.compuphase.com/software_spool.htm

Here is a list of current HP printers and their PCL5/PCL6 support: https://support.hp.com/gb-en/document/c04324001

I believe PCL5 is the best bet for black and white. However I would like to print in color, but I think the drivers we have are PCL3.

Some questions and answers, correct me if I'm wrong:

Is 3GUI compatible with 3? No, probably.
Is 3enhanced or 3+ compatible with 3? No, probably.
It seems that a PCL5 emulation is best choice. PCL6 may also be compatible if the printer include the PCL 5 backward compatibility.

Files in ZIP:
cmyk_nor.pcl : ImageCopy CMYK Deskjet Normal.
pap6l_bw.pcl : NVDI 5 HP LaserJet 6L black and white 600 dpi.
best_cmy.pcl : ImageCopy CMY best Deskjet.
1200n8c2.pcl : NVDI 5 HP Deskjet 1200 normal 8-color.

If you find a printer that works in color, let me know! On the printer I'm testing on in the video, only best_cmy.pcl will print correctly in color. Anything in black and white with a LaserJet printer driver prints perfectly.

[krupkaj]

this is really great news Thanks for your work

[vido]

This is really great news for Atari community!!! Thank you!
But my standard question ...
Is there a chance this could be working also on the FireBee?

[Perdrix24]

Another possibility, if someone knows how to capture the data going to the parallel port, my driver could transfer that data to the USB. I don't know if that would work however.

For the FireBee, I don't know.

[RetroMan]

Another possibility, if someone knows how to capture the data going to the parallel port, my driver could transfer that data to the USB. I don't know if that would work however.

It is possible to capture data what goes to parallel port. Of course not that simple - need to install new printer driver code what will get data in regular way (TOS) and not writing it out to parallel port, but to your USB driver .

[simonsunnyboy]

Another possibility, if someone knows how to capture the data going to the parallel port, my driver could transfer that data to the USB. I don't know if that would work however.

For the FireBee, I don't know.

My idea would be a BIOS intercept routine for the printer port outputs.
That should be compatible with all TOS based software using BIOS or GEMDOS to print.

For FreeMinT probably some special device could be made.

I personally think a GEMDOS/BIOS dropin would be the most compatible for all programs not using NVDI.

[ThorstenOtto]

Another possibility, if someone knows how to capture the data going to the parallel port, my driver could transfer that data to the USB. I don't know if that would work however.

Intercepting the xconout vector(s) for the printer device should work (those starting at address 0x51e in the system variables, for the PRT device that would be 0x55e for output status and 0x57e for character output). If i'm not wrong, that should work even in MiNT, although it might be a bit slow since the program has to go all the way to the lowest level of the BIOS for every character. Writing a separate lp.xdd might be a better choice there.

For the FireBee, I don't know.

I would bet that this attempt works there, too.

[Atari74user]

Just to add, awesome project!

[Galvez]

Is there a chance this could be working also on the FireBee?

No with the current FireTOS. To use this printer driver you need MiNT's USB stack or its TOS version, latest FireTOS version has a bug in its PCI-BIOS implementation that avoids to install new interrupt handlers for PCI devices so it's not possible to install MiNT's EHCI driver.

[Perdrix24]

Intercepting the xconout vector(s) for the printer device should work (those starting at address 0x51e in the system variables, for the PRT device that would be 0x55e for output status and 0x57e for character output). If i'm not wrong, that should work even in MiNT, although it might be a bit slow since the program has to go all the way to the lowest level of the BIOS for every character. Writing a separate lp.xdd might be a better choice there.

Thanks for this info. And a friend helped me set it up, now I have a function in which I see the output directed at the parallel port. I can now proceed to add in it my code to send that output to the USB printer. And also to handle bcostat. At this point I have:

Code: Select all

#define BCOSTAT0 ((volatile unsigned long *)0x55eL)
#define BCONOUT0 ((volatile unsigned long *)0x57eL)

long
printer_bcostat(ushort dev)
{
	return -1L; // ready
}

long
printer_bconout(ushort dev, ushort ch)
{
	Bconout(2,ch); // All characters displayed on screen OK.
	return 0L; //OK
}

	ret = Super (0L);
	*BCOSTAT0 = (long) printer_bcostat;
	*BCONOUT0 = (long) printer_bconout;
	SuperToUser (ret);

[catmando]

Not strictly related to this project, but has anyone tried one of these https://www.lpt2usb.net/ with their ST?

[ThorstenOtto]

AFAIK the ST printer port does not have all the signals that are needed for this.