graphics dump and the XEP80
From: Michael Current (aj848@cleveland.Freenet.Edu)
Date: 07/03/91-01:39:27 AM Z
From: aj848@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Michael Current)
Subject: graphics dump and the XEP80
Date: Wed Jul 3 01:39:27 1991
This spring for my Computational Physics class special project I did some
programming and some graphing on my 130XE. Since a poster presentation was
required, I needed some hard-copies of the graphs I produced. Simple, right?
Not in this case. My Epson LX-810 is about as standard of a 9-pin dot-matrix
printer you can have, but my lone printer interface is the XEP80 Interface
Module. This in itself can be annoying because I can't print anything unless I
have that xep80han.com file loaded. Most of my printing I do from AtariWriter
80, so I already have the handler loaded. But now I had to load the handler,
then use a special BASIC XIO command to return to the Antic display so I could
print through the interface at the same time as I had a gr.8 screen displayed.
A plea to comp.sys.atari.8bit on Usenet resulted in a couple different codings
in BASIC for dumping a gr.8 screen to the printer. But they each froze the
computer before the printing began! After many frustrating re-boots of the
system I learned that once the XEP80 handler is loaded, the act of entering any
graphics mode of 6 or higher will cause a system lock-up. Problem identified.
I had two choices. One was to get a normal printer interface like
the ICD P:R: Connection, so I could print any time I want to. I may get
around to doing that someday. But with the presentation date fast approaching,
I found a good work-around. Instead of dumping right to the printer, I
adjusted the BASIC code I had to print to a data file instead. So I could run
my program, save the graph to a file, go to DOS, load the XEP80 handler, then
copy the data file from disk to printer. A convoluted but effective graphics
screen dump. Project saved.
--
Michael Current '93 Internet: currentm@carleton.edu
Carleton College Cleveland Free-Net: aj848
Northfield, MN 55057 telephone: (507) 663-5181
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