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Graphics printing?

Por madcrow

Expert (78)

Imagen del madcrow

02-09-2012, 20:40

Does the built-in printer emulation support any kind of graphics? Just for fun, I drew up a simple picture in an MSX graphics program and tried to print it. Instead of a PNG file with a picture in it, I got a few PNG-format pages of what looks like random letters and numbers! This happens in both msx-printer and epson-printer modes. Does anybody know if OpenMSX's printer emulation is up to printing graphics and if so, what programs produce output in a form that the built-in emulators like?

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Por Manuel

Ascended (19461)

Imagen del Manuel

03-09-2012, 10:49

It should work, as you expected indeed. Let me try. I know that e.g. Dynamic Publisher worked fine at some point.

OK, tried it... I'll have to look at it in a bit more detail. It worked, but I only got the output file after unplugging the msx-printer again from the printerport. You can try that, of course... but I don't think that is very nice behaviour Tongue

Por Manuel

Ascended (19461)

Imagen del Manuel

03-09-2012, 20:00

Ah, the reason is that otherwise the system doesn't really know when to finalize the PNG file... Please try that for now, we might come up with something better... e.g. updating it earlier, with the side effect that it can still change while you might think it's finished...

Por wouter_

Hero (522)

Imagen del wouter_

03-09-2012, 20:44

Or to rephrase Manuels answer: openMSX only writes the PNG file when the page is fully finished (so when the paper would roll out of the real printer). It's likely that your test program only printed half a page and didn't send a form-feed command to the printer. One way to 'force' openMSX to write the PNG file is to unplug the printer (as Manuel suggested). An other way is to send a form-feed command to the printer.

Of course it's also important to send the correct control sequences to the printer (select the correct 'printer driver' in the program if multiple are supported). If you send the wrong sequences it's indeed likely you end up with lots of pages with random letters and numbers. Just like what would happen if you do the same thing on a real machine.