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FlWriter version 1.0 released (Announce)

posted by Ibidem, 23.03.2012, 04:54

> I am afraid a GDI printer will not work in real mode DOS. Even if you get
> USB communication to work using a DOS USB driver the GDI printer needs
> special data transfered over the USB link which is generated by the Windows
> printer driver or the equivalent in Linux. This can be undocumented
> commands for the print head and/or some special compression of the data
> send to the printer.
I'm aware of that. However, I looked at what the Linux driver creates, and it is definately straight PCL5e, and a generic PCL5e driver (hpijs, if you're curious) works as well as the OEM driver at getting text through.
The latter fact seems to demonstrate that this printer can be used without special handshakes.
(FWIW, the printer is the Brother HL 2230 laser printer)
There may be other printers like this, too.

It will take the right USB drivers, though (which might be USB1.1/Intel, USB2/Intel, or USB2/AMD, depending on which computer I try with.)

As far as printing goes--I usually print when the paper's done, and hardly ever before then. So for me, a word processor that can't print is only minimally impaired.

Yes, I know about dosemu -> lpr -> cups. I can't see a reason to use that apart from testing whether you're creating valid PCL. I have a few word processors that I rely on under Linux, but was curious if native DOS would work.

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