@olsen The cleanest way to start over for the 3.1.4 update seemed to be to take the SAS/C port I had prepared and take it from there. Sure enough, this was 10-15 year old code which had not been reviewed since. There was trouble in every corner. Thomas reviewed the printer.device, tested, updated and rewrote it, filling in the gaps in the implementation to allow for OS 3.5/3.9 driver and prefs compatibility. Then it turned out that the HP printer drivers which were added in the OS 3.5/3.9 update were just as lacking as the printer.device and had to be reviewed, tested and updated. This was pretty scary
This really is baffling to me and it seems to me a mission anal retentiveness rather than to be useful in the real world!!! The Printer Drivers / printer.device were ALWAYS rubbish and are not worth updating! Everyone who wanted to use a printer on their classic who didn't want to be limited to a centronix era dot-matrix monstrousity bough TurboPrint period. There is absolutely NO point reinventing the wheel just because TurboPrint is no longer developed just as in the same way OS3.9 is no longer developed. These products were good and can still be bought / downloaded the last time I checked!
Maybe people just love putting right what once went wrong in a weird geeky 'Quantum Leap' kinda way but this project really doesn't seem to provide ANY real world benfits to the few Classic users remaining over and above what has gone before.
OS3.9 IS STILL FOR SALE AT VESALIA'S WEB STORE!!! THOMAS ET AL. ARE COMPETING AGAINST A 16 YEAR OLD PRODUCT AND DON'T SEEM TO CARE ABOUT IMPROVING ON IT (FEATURES, COMPATIBILITY AND SPEED IS ALL MOST OF US REALLY CARE ABOUT). IT SEEMS THOMAS MIGHT BE TEMPTED TO COMPETE WITH OS3.9 IF WE ALL INVEST IN THIS SPELLING AND GRAMMAR CHECKING EXCERCISE FIRST!! IS THAT ABOUT THE LONG AND THE SHORT OF IT? AM I MISSING ANYTHING? Sorry to use caps but what exactly are we buying and why?