Printing under OS3.9: multiple units, color, and lpr.device

[LoadWB]

It's funny that I just tried this, considering the recent threads about printing.

For a while I have been using lpr.device with HP JetDirect-based printers and an SMC Barricade 7008ABR router.  Great stuff.

Tonight I retired my LaserJet 6L on the SMC (as an LPR printer) in favor of an HP LaserJet 4050TN (in RAW) and a HP DeskJet 882C on the SMC.

I never noticed this until reconfiguration tonight, that the new printer.device (v44) supports multiple units.  Multiple printers on the Amiga, AWESOME!  I was wondering if anyone has any information on using multiple printers under OS3.9, and if there's any way to get GraphicDump to print to a different unit.

The next thing I noticed was the horrible color dithering.  I tried printing my screen of 1280x1024x24 on the DeskJet 882C, and it was not pretty.  So, now I'm looking for information on good color printing.

I don't print much on the Amiga because of the limitations, mostly printing text.  But the possibilities may have just opened up.

[LoadWB]

:afro: :bump:

While I'm at it, I'll ask if anyone has any idea why an extra page is output from the printer after a print job.

[Boot_WB]

I just use Turboprint, with all applications (and printer prefs iirc) printing to "PS:" .
Turboprint is set up with (iirc) HPLaserjet3 driver to print to USBparallel.device unit 0, with a kyocera mita FS1010 (mono laser printer) attached to the Deneb.

Works like a charm.

With multiple USB printers connected, I would expect that these would be addressed as USBparallel.device unit 1, 2, etc (which would be listed under Trident) but I've never tried it, I only own one printer. Then, the desired printer would just be selected from Turboprefs before printing from whichever application.

Regards


Rich

[Matt_H]

Printing has always been one of the Amiga's weakest areas. Turoprint supposedly helps a lot, though I don't have it. PostScript is a huge help if you don't have Turboprint.

For better color output, make sure the dithering method is set to something other than the default. Floyd-Steinberg is a big improvement. I think the Workbench printer.device is still limited to 4096 colors, so some manner of dithering is definitely required.

As I recall, multiple units can only be used by programs that support them, IE, those written with v44 printer support. In the grand timeline of Amiga software, though, that's not a lot of programs. I think non-compliant (read: old) programs just default to unit 0. This is documented somewhere - might be in the Boing Bag Readmes, or maybe in the digital manual on the OS install CD.

I used to get an extra page after printing as well, but I can't remember what I changed to get rid of it. I also can't remember if I got extra pages after any print job, or just those from certain programs. It might have had something to do with the number of lines per page in the Workbench Prefs, or sending an EOF character in the Wordworth Printer Prefs.

EDIT: For GraphicDump, there's a UNIT keyword you can adjust if you run from a shell.
EDIT2: From some quick SnoopDOSing, it looks like UNIT works as a Toottype as well, but it's not in the icon by default.