Dosprint works with USB port

[Harry Binswanger hb@xxxxxxxx]

Xywriters can now print from Xy to a local USB printer, by purchasing the
program DOSPRINT.


http://www.dosprint.com/

My thanks to Patricia, who sent me privately the idea of using the old
ldprn command to get the proper escape-sequences typed to a file.


First, I had to take out from the eps3.prn file the semi-colon-introduced
comments, which apparently Xy4 doesn't accept. That is, I had to change
things like:


MD NM=114 ; normal

to:

MD NM=114

Then Xy4 accepted the .prn file, and DOSPRINT worked!

I still have to tweak it because the output didn't look very good, but it
all the text came through.


Next I succeeded calling dosprint from within Xy:

dos/nv /c c:\dosprint\dosprint c:\xy\fo.tmp

So the whole thing can be automated.

DOSPRINT can be downloaded in an evaluation form for free. It seems to be
the full program, but they cleverly limit it to testing-use by having it
print a large, faint "SAMPLE" in red on top of the text vertically down the
page. I'm thinking of buying it, but the price is $105 (including a $30
online-purchase discount and a $6 "handling" fee--what handling?).


Harry Binswanger
hb@xxxxxxxx