Conference 7.286::atarist

I'm confused... What is it that you are trying to do?

>    My program only allows me to write to the parallel port of the ST.
>    I would like it to write to Disk instead.
You mean you want to modify a program you wrote to write something to disk? If
so just can use fopen(), fprintf(), and fclose() (among other functions) in
your program.

>    they say they have no program that will redirect the output to the
>    disk.
This sounds like you are running "someone elses" program which currently
outputs to the printer port and you want the output to go to disk? There are
programs written by Moshe Braner (sp?) and others which redirect screen dumps
to go to a file on disk. If thats what you want I could dig up one of those
programs for you. For programs that send text and graphics to the printer
directly (ie: not a screen dump) you should be able to write a "shell" to
redirect the printer output to a file. I've never done this, but again I may
be able to come up with some example code if that's what you are looking for.

>    Now we have some really good programmers who have ST's and I lay the
>    challange for someone to write such a routine.
>    Any takers?
If you could explain a little more about what you want, it may be that we can
find something that already exists.

	Ray

    The spooler found in the Abacus books have some bugs. There are some
    good pd and commercial spoolers that allow for the output to be
    redirected to disk rather that the parallel port. Also, some of the WP
    programs come equipped with a spooler to do the same.
    
    Most pd spoolers for the ST simply buffer the output from the bios to
    the printer port. NEODESK ships with a desk accessory printer queue
    utility which does spool to disk. NEODESK is an excellent alternative
    desk top for the ST, and version 3.0 is currently shipping. 
    
    Jerry
    

    Thanks both for your replies. The program I use is "PCB Designer" whic
    will only allow me to print the PCB design to a HPGL plotter. It's not
    a screen dump as line thicknesses etc are involved and output is of
    course HPGL. What I want to do is to direct the out of the plotter
    driver to a disk in HPGL format instead of to the plotter so that I can
    bring the disk to work, convert to Postscript and print on a LN03R.
    Some drafting programs e.g. later GFA Draft, gives you the choice of
    outputting to disk or printer/plotter. Not so PCB Designer. NEODESK may
    be the answer. Hope this explains better what I want. Thanks.
    ...Howard

The program refered to in .1 is not limited to handling screen dumps. Barrel
redirects all output destined for the parallel port to a buffer in memory.
There is an option to write that out as-is to a file. Sounds like this will do
what you are looking for. Barrel is PD.

Buzz was right (thanks for correcting me) about BARREL doing what you
want. Here is an excerpt from BARREL.DOC -

	"You have a printer-driver to print graphics from program X on printer
	A. But you would like to use printer B.  You have the documentation
	for both printers.  You could easily write a "post-processor" program
	that will replace one set of control chars with another.  But first
	you need a method of capturing the output for printer A in a file...

	It is all possible with the program "BARREL"."

You can copy BARREL.ARC from OLDTMR::$1$DUA8:USER2:[WALLACE.PUBLIC.ST]

	Ray

    Magic..Thanks very much, Barrel seems to be exactly what I need. 
    I've copied (Ray, your disk is incorrectly addressed - second part) 
    and will try it out tonight or over the weekend. Challange discontinued!!!
    Cheers.
    ...Howard

    Hi Howard,
    please let me know, if BARREL is a good tool for printing on a file.
    I have the same problems as you, but with another PRG...
    73 de Rolf, DD2FX @ DB0SAO
    

    I tried it last night but got parity errors when reading from disk. I
    think this was my fault and I've re-copied it to a known good disk. I
    certainly sounded better!!!
    OK Rolf, I'll let you know via packet @DB0SAO.
    ...Howard

    I tried again over the weekend and it appeared to work. I brought a
    disk to work, exported it to my account and all seemed fine. There is
    just one problem in that the prog HP2PS says there's no Postscript
    Translation for the HPGL term IW. Ah well thats another story.
    Did you get my Packet Rolf?
    In case anyones interested this is how I did the whole thing using my
    VAXstation 3100:
    1. Copy file Barrel from net to my account.
    2. Bring in a disk that was formatted using PS2FORM and a time stamp
    before 12.00 a.m. and dd.mm.yy. This is important as PCDISK rejects a
    time of e.g. 13.00 p.m.
    3. Copy from account to disk using PCDISK. (USE B: DUA2: /WRITE).
    4. Take home, de-arc and put on boot disk.
    5. When booting Atari run Barrel and set up buffer size.
    6. Print to parallel port. Nothing will appear to happen as it goes to
    barrel.
    7. Run barrel again and from the menu output to disk.
    8. ARC and UUENCODE file and bring to work, again noting the time
    stamp "feature".
    8. Export using PCDISK, UUDECODE, DE-ARC, HP2PS and print.
    Easy eh?
    ...Howard