BBC Micro and Electron

[anightin]

Yes the v3.8 is not an official release as such.

Not sure what the Electron is doing to be honest. The only other option would be to increase the printer_delay setting to see if that helps.

Okay thanks HNY BTW , any idea of scale to try for printer_delay config?

e.g. Is it a case of changing from 5-6? or 5-10? or 5-100?

[RWAP]

I have just been re-reading the thread and I think I have remembered the issue incorrectly.

To recap - am I correct in thinking:

a) Printout from the BBC is fine
b) Printout from the Electron is working correctly if you use *FX 6,0
Unfortunately, the Electron defaults to *FX 6,10 (ignore line feeds - character 10).
The auto-line feed is not resolving the problem - possibly because the Electron is not sending a carriage return at the end of a print section.

That would explain it - I wonder how a printer handled this.....

Oddly the 13.eps printout also seems to repeat every byte 3 times (which is why I suggested the printer_delay which can prevent this). Maybe there is more at play here when *FX 6,10 is used. Printer_delay - I would start at 30 and try reducing it.

I wonder if an Epson printer would automatically generate a line feed (if the DIP switch was set) when the right hand margin was reached?

[anightin]

To recap - am I correct in thinking:

a) Printout from the BBC is fine
b) Printout from the Electron is working correctly if you use *FX 6,0

Actually the Beeb and Electron exhibit exactly the same behaviour. This is the main reason I switched over to the Electron from the Beeb when starting testing.

I wonder if an Epson printer would automatically generate a line feed (if the DIP switch was set) when the right hand margin was reached?

I suspect this is closer to the issue, as I do vaguely remember having to set the LF DIP switch in my Epson FX80 BITD when I owned my first Beeb.

BTW I've tried a delay of 25 and that seemed to make no difference to the output.

[anightin]

Dug out a manual for the EPSON I used to own and found some interesting info:

http://www.minuszerodegrees.net/manuals ... Manual.pdf

From page 27

EPSON MX-80 SWITCHES.png (171.9 KiB) Viewed 7070 times

Note that there are separate DIP switch options in the printer for CR + LF and buffer-full + LF

I am wondering if the behaviour seen from my original hardware (BBC/Elk) is expecting an auto LF on buffer full (although not factory behaviour i.e. auto LF is off as a factory default).

Maybe the extra null characters are an attempt to fill the current buffer?

Clearly this is an EPSON printer option that is not currently mirrored by the Retro-Printer software.

Also on page 29 it would appear that holding printer interface PIN 14 LOW will also replicate this AUTO_LF behaviour.

Looking at the Beeb user guide, ignore LF (*FX6,10) is default behaviour, and the Beeb does not use pin 14 of the Centronics I/F. So I guess it's down to cable wiring and/or DIP switch setting to get auto LF enabled.

As mentioned previously, I believe I had to set the DIP switches to Auto-LF which ties up with the above defaults for Beeb+Elk.

[RWAP]

Hi Andy,

Thanks for this information - the ESC/P programming manual has a list of printers 1984-1996 with the dip switches and oddly the MX-80 appears to be the only printer with the DIP switch setting to add a line feed when the buffer is full. Other printers seem to have a buffer of 1K, 2K or 8K, but the MX-80 has a buffer of "single line".

That would explain the behaviour so will need yet another optional parameter, or change the auto_linefeed parameter to allow:

No
CR
BUFF (add line feed when right hand edge of page is reached)
CR+BUFF

(CR would be the current effect).

holding printer interface PIN 14 LOW will also replicate this AUTO_LF behaviour

We should be able to implement this, I will check...

[anightin]

... or change the auto_linefeed parameter to allow:

No
CR
BUFF (add line feed when right hand edge of page is reached)
CR+BUFF

(CR would be the current effect).

Extending the auto_linefeed sounds very logical, as this is then providing the same functionality as the EPSON hardware

Happy to test when available.

[RWAP]

OK I seem to have figured out what the Electron is expecting the printer to do.

Try: https://www.dropbox.com/s/m1kggyq7ywvr9 ... C.img?dl=0

I have set the auto_linefeed to

Code: Select all

CR+BUFF

but you may need to set the Epson_pins to 9

[anightin]

OK I seem to have figured out what the Electron is expecting the printer to do.

Try: https://www.dropbox.com/s/m1kggyq7ywvr9 ... C.img?dl=0

I have set the auto_linefeed to

Code: Select all

CR+BUFF

but you may need to set the Epson_pins to 9

Hi Rich,

I gave this a quick try today and bingo, worked perfectly as expected out of the box.

ELK.jpeg (173.9 KiB) Viewed 6994 times

PRINTOUT.jpeg (71.34 KiB) Viewed 6994 times

I think you've cracked it

[RWAP]

Excellent news I can add this configuration option to the main release then

[anightin]

Excellent news I can add this configuration option to the main release then

Yes please. Really appreciate the good work you are doing here.