0

I have several legacy applications running under DOSBox (I have the Daum's Cafe SVN from http://ykhwong.x-y.net/). Most DOS programs that could handle formatted printing did it internally to the program, emitting the actual printer language (EscP, Postscript, or PCL). How do I configure a Windows printer to tell it "Do not attempt to process incoming data, just send what you get to the printer absolutely unaltered"? I have no problem with the idea of setting up a separate logical printer reserved for printing from DOSBox if that's what it takes.

Solutions for Windows 7 and Windows 10 are of interest.

Improve this question

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
0

Setup/install a Generic Text-Only printer. You need of course a printer that supports ASCII datastreams with EscP, Postscript, or PCL codes embedded.

Improve this answer
0

I'm not an expert on this but what you can try is using a poscript printer driver and set it to print to a file. When you exit to Windows you can execute the poscript file. I have had some luck with this but I can't guarantee that it will work for every application. Good luck with it. I would not use ykhwong's emulator if you are running Windows 10. I tried using it twice to access a printer and twice it locked up my computer so badly that I had no choice but to rebuild my whole PC.

Hope this helps.

Improve this answer
4
  • The reason I used the Daum SVN is because it's the only one I found that actually supports emulating printer ports at all; at least one of the legacy programs I'm using can't print to a file; LPT1: is hardcoded into the program. So far, I've had no problem with it on Windows 10, but I've mapped from LPT1 to a file, and am using Lerup's PrintFile to take the resulting files and send them to the printer, but there have been issues regarding passing 'preformatted' EscP data to the printer through the Windows print drivers, hence this question.
    – Jeff Zeitlin
    Feb 11, 2019 at 12:26
  • You could try vDos (www.vdos.info). It also runs DOS programs, but has built-in print support for DOS/BIOS LPT/COM1-9 to Windows devices: DOS able (pass-through) or Windows only printers (ProPrinter/Epson/PCL emulation).
    – Jos Schaars
    Feb 12, 2019 at 8:57
  • @JosSchaars - I'm not going to be decommitting from DOSBox/Daum anytime soon, but vDOS looks interesting; I'll check it out - might be worth having DB/Daum and vDOS side-by-side...
    – Jeff Zeitlin
    Feb 12, 2019 at 12:47
  • Don’t think you would keep DB/Daum and vDos side-by-side. DB is primary for gaming, vDos strictly for serious work. Although PrintFile wouldn’t add anything to vDos, it should work just fine. And more direct, no printing to file or PrintFile server-mode (monitoring files with a timeout) needed.
    – Jos Schaars
    Feb 12, 2019 at 19:54

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .