Updating KEGS, have some questions
Christopher G. Mason
I have been hacking away at the last release of KEGS 0.91, namely the
KEGS32 port that used to be hosted over at geocities. So far I have
added full Uthernet support via WinPCap (using the latest tfe code from
VICE), parallel card support, and virtual color printer support (Epson
LQ based, from an unofficial CVS build of the DOSBOX project). Anyway I
had a few questions.
1. For the parallel card emulation, I implemented a very basic interface
in virtual Slot 1 utilizing the firmware from the Apple II Parallel
Card. How do these cards work officially? Right now I am sending all
data being written to $C090 to the virtual printer. It seems to work ok
but I am noticing apps are writing the same data to other addresses (ex:
$C092), is there any particular reason for this behavior? For printer
status info, I am following AppleWin's approach and just returning 0xFF
("Ready") anytime an app reads $C090-C09F. What is the "official"
address used to query printer status, and what are the hex values for
the various states? (ex: off line, out of paper, etc.)
2. I would like to implement ImageWriter II emulation, but I am running
into issues with GS/OS. Its Imagewriter driver queries the printer using
ESC-? to determine if there is a color ribbon installed and assumes B&W
only printing if it receives no response. Even though it isn't possible
in real life, I would like to route data via the parallel interface
because it "prints" ALOT faster, KEGS' SCC emulation is timing accurate
and 57600 baud is 57600 baud. The problem is parallel data transfer is
one way and one can't return the query string the driver is looking for.
Is there a patched driver around one can use to force color printing?
Otherwise I will have to resort to using the emulated serial interface.
3. Does anyone have technical info for the Imagewriter LQ (escape codes,
etc.)? It may be a viable emulation option for high res color GS/OS
printing.
4. Is Harmonie available for sale anywhere? I would like to test its
Epson LQ driver against the printer emulation. The freeware GS/OS driver
I found is pretty buggy and black and white only. The good news is The
Print Shop GS prints in full color. Kinda weird (and neat) seeing that
stuff coming out of my color laser printer.
5. I would like to possibly add basic MIDI I/O to KEGS. Emulating an
Apple MIDI adapter hooked up to a serial port would likely be the
easiest way to do this, but I need to know how it works. Was it just a
"dumb" box, just converting the RS-232 signals to MIDI friendly timing,
or did it have any firmware? Otherwise another option might be emulating
a Passport Designs MIDI card.
That should be it for now. Hopefully I will get a build up for download
soon. It will be Win32 only for now as I don't have access to a Linux or
OS X machine for building and testing.
Steve Nickolas
> 2. I would like to implement ImageWriter II emulation, but I am running
> into issues with GS/OS. Its Imagewriter driver queries the printer using
> ESC-? to determine if there is a color ribbon installed and assumes B&W
> only printing if it receives no response. Even though it isn't possible
> in real life, I would like to route data via the parallel interface
> because it "prints" ALOT faster, KEGS' SCC emulation is timing accurate
> and 57600 baud is 57600 baud. The problem is parallel data transfer is
> one way and one can't return the query string the driver is looking for.
> Is there a patched driver around one can use to force color printing?
> Otherwise I will have to resort to using the emulated serial interface.
That's because the ImageWriters are *serial* printers.
-uso.
Michael J. Mahon
How about always returning either "color capable" or "black and white"
based on a user option?
> 3. Does anyone have technical info for the Imagewriter LQ (escape codes,
> etc.)? It may be a viable emulation option for high res color GS/OS
> printing.
That manual must be online somewhere...
> 5. I would like to possibly add basic MIDI I/O to KEGS. Emulating an
> Apple MIDI adapter hooked up to a serial port would likely be the
> easiest way to do this, but I need to know how it works. Was it just a
> "dumb" box, just converting the RS-232 signals to MIDI friendly timing,
> or did it have any firmware? Otherwise another option might be emulating
> a Passport Designs MIDI card.
That would enable many older //e programs to use MIDI as well.
The clock rate and character frame of the UART must be changed to match
MIDI. Other than that, it's an electrical conversion problem.
-michael
NadaNet and AppleCrate II: parallel computing for Apple II computers!
Home page: http://home.comcast.net/~mjmahon
"The wastebasket is our most important design
tool--and it's seriously underused."
Christopher G. Mason
The GS/OS Imagewriter driver already has a combo box to toggle between
B&W and Color. The issue is the color option is greyed out unless the
driver receives a reply from the printer after issuing it the ESC-?
command. This article goes into detail what actually happens:
<http://home.datacodsl.com/~kalandi/apple/AUG/1992/04%20APR/PRINT.GSOS.html>
Worst comes to worst I'll just have to "connect" the printer to a serial
port. The SCC code in KEGS needs an overhaul anyway, the configuration
right now isn't very flexible.
> That would enable many older //e programs to use MIDI as well.
>
> The clock rate and character frame of the UART must be changed to match
> MIDI. Other than that, it's an electrical conversion problem.
>
I kinda figured that. MIDI via serial port emulation is pretty straight
forward then, basically redirect the MIDI I/O to the host system's MIDI
subsystem. VICE also has Passport (6850 based) MIDI emulation that I
could implement as well, the advantage being all Apple II software
(including GS/OS) could use it. The hardest part (as usual) is going to
be targeting the various host systems. I'll add it to the list, I think
it would be cool to control a modern wavetable synth using Music Studio,
or using Cakewalk or Cubase to control the emulated IIgs 5503DOC. I do
have other things I would like to add to KEGS first though.... like a
real configuration GUI.
dagz
I started hacking some things in for KEGS 0.91 as well but I'm not
positive it's the same version as yours.
I just started about a month ago and have been somewhat distracted so
I haven't gotten very far. If you'd like someone to work on a Linux
port, that was/is my target platform so I'd definitely be interested
in trying to bring your code over Linux as it sounds like you've
already gotten a lot further.
Send me an email if you are interested in a Linux maintainer.
Either way, good luck with the project and I hope we can see your work
soon.
dagz
The GUI was specifically what my focus was. That and to allow you to
have more integration with the host OS (specifically disk images).
Reason being that I want to be able to, for example, be editing code
on the host OS and have the ability to freeze the emulator and save my
code over a previous version on a prodos image. There are of course
some complexities involved but I already approximate some of this
through various tools and scripts I wrote.
Michael J. Mahon
Then if you always return the "color capable" response, the user
will get to decide whether his hardware is actually color capable.
Sounds fine to me.
Oliver Schmidt
>I have been hacking away at the last release of KEGS 0.91, namely the
>KEGS32 port that used to be hosted over at geocities. So far I have
>added full Uthernet support via WinPCap (using the latest tfe code from
>VICE), parallel card support, and virtual color printer support (Epson
>LQ based, from an unofficial CVS build of the DOSBOX project).
Great :-) I've been thinking about playing around with the KEGS32 code
quite some times (but not enhancing it the way you do). Your
enhancements are the very right ones in my opinion! They boost my
motivation to actually do something someday ;-)
Good luck, Oliver
a2retro
Christopher G. Mason wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> I have been hacking away at the last release of KEGS 0.91, namely the
> KEGS32 port that used to be hosted over at geocities. So far I have
> added full Uthernet support via WinPCap (using the latest tfe code from
> VICE), parallel card support, and virtual color printer support (Epson
> LQ based, from an unofficial CVS build of the DOSBOX project). Anyway I
> had a few questions.
>
Hi Christopher,
Drop me a line - sup...@a2retrosystems.com
I have a kegswin version of Uthernet support based off the port I did of
the VICE code for Applewin as well.
Glenn
a2retro
Christopher G. Mason wrote:
>
> I have been hacking away at the last release of KEGS 0.91, namely the
> KEGS32 port that used to be hosted over at geocities. So far I have
> added full Uthernet support via WinPCap (using the latest tfe code from
> VICE), parallel card support, and virtual color printer support (Epson
> LQ based, from an unofficial CVS build of the DOSBOX project). Anyway I
> had a few questions.
>
Hi Christopher,