Vintage Printer on DOSBOX SVN-LFN: DOSBOX prints, but QBASIC will not. Please help! \ VOGONS

Vintage Printer on DOSBOX SVN-LFN: DOSBOX prints, but QBASIC will not. Please help!

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First post, by polygonfuture

Posted on 2017-09-05, 22:41

polygonfuture Offline

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Hi everyone!

This is my first post so pardon my newbie status.

I am working on an art installation part of my MFA at UCLA. I am re-creating an office from the 1980s, using vintage office equipment. All of the computers, equipment, keyboards are alive and working with people (keyboards printing themselves, computers running terminal commands, etc)

I have an Epson FX-85 I am attemping to print using a super simple QBASIC / BASIC program.

The printer prints perfectly using the DOSBOX-SVN-LFN build using simple dos commands (EX. DOS > LPT1 )

However, when I attempt to print using QBASIC, I am told that it cannot find the printer:

Does anyone have any suggestions or thoughts? If not, can you please direct me where I mijght be able to find answers?

Cheers,

Jonathan

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Reply 1 of 9, by collector

Posted on 2017-09-05, 23:20

collector Offline

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DOSBox does not have printer support. You will need to use an experimental build of DOSBox, or better yet try vDos. https://sourceforge.net/projects/vdos/

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Reply 2 of 9, by polygonfuture

Posted on 2017-09-06, 01:02

polygonfuture Offline

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As mentioned in my post above, I am using a build of dosbox which allows printing.

I can print out a directory using the command DIR > LPT1, but the LPRINT command does not work in qbasic.

Reply 3 of 9, by gdjacobs

Posted on 2017-09-06, 01:56

gdjacobs Offline

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If you have special functionality you have questions about, please contact the maintainer of that version of DOSBox or the author of the printing patch, whichever is easier. Alternately, have a look at VDOS as recommended by collector. It's built to run vintage office software.

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Reply 4 of 9, by Wengier

Posted on 2017-09-17, 03:09

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QBASIC will *not* function properly in vDos because vDos lacks keyboard INT9/IRQ1 support. You are recommended to try vDosPlus (vDosPlus.org) instead. vDosPlus has *all* features of vDos plus many many more.

P.S. I am the maintainer of both DOSBox SVN-lfn and vDosPlus. The printing support in DOSBox SVN-lfn is relatively basic; for advanced printing support you are strongly recommended to use vDosPlus instead of DOSBox SVN-lfn in this case, and in recent days I am more focused on vDosPlus developments. Hope this helps.

Wengier

Reply 5 of 9, by gdjacobs

Posted on 2017-09-17, 19:32

gdjacobs Offline

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Hey, Wengier! Does vDosPlus add any build dependencies over DosBox which are WIndows specific? I'm curious if a build could be developed for other platforms, time depending.

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Reply 6 of 9, by gca

Posted on 2017-09-17, 20:18

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Well, thought not 100% relevant to the original question there is a dedicated Windows version of QBasic called QB64 ( http://www.qb64.net ) which should do printing if your desperate. It even makes stand alone exe files (which QBasic cannot, as its a cut down version of Quick Basic).

Reply 7 of 9, by Wengier

Posted on 2017-09-17, 21:55

Wengier Offline

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gdjacobs wrote:
Hey, Wengier! Does vDosPlus add any build dependencies over DosBox which are WIndows specific? I'm curious if a build could be developed for other platforms, time depending.

Hi gdjacobs,

Like vDos, vDosPlus is a DOS emulator for Windows, so yes it has Windows-specific functions and will not natively work for other platforms (vDosPlus will run on Windows XP+ or even Windows 2000 while latest vDos will only run on Windows Vista+). However, vDosPlus can indeed run on a different platform like macOS with the help of programs like Wineskin Winery. For example, a vDosPlus package for Mac made by Edward Mendelson can be found from here:

https://www.freelists.org/post/xywrite/vDosPl … ged-for-the-Mac

Hope this helps.
Wengier

Reply 8 of 9, by gdjacobs

Posted on 2017-09-17, 22:25

gdjacobs Offline

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I haven't tried it under a compatibility layer like WINE. I was wondering if it requires any higher level toolkit, like MFC, or if it was similar to DOSBOX and used cross platform libraries throughout. Even if MFC is used, Winelib might be an option.
https://wiki.winehq.org/Winelib

Just trying to get a sense of things.

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Reply 9 of 9, by collector

Posted on 2017-09-18, 00:32

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Another option would be QB64. http://www.qb64.net/

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