VOGONS


First post, by cebceb

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I have an old DOS program that is still very helpful in my engineering work to perform certain engineering calculations. I have used this program successfully for many years.

I now have a new vista computer and can run the program with vista by using DosBox. But here is the problem. The text when I now run the program is white text on a black background. When I print a solution page it prints in the same manner-white text on a black background.

Of course, I want to print with a black text on a white background in the usual manner as with all documents. I have not been able to fine a way to do this.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to print black on white when my DOS program screen will only display white on black.

Thanks in advance for your assistance.

cebceb

Reply 1 of 9, by MiniMax

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I hope you are not planning to build bridges based on those calculations...

I am not sure exactly what the limitations are, but the floating point math is not 100% accurate in CPU emulation done by DOSBox.

DOSBox 60 seconds guide | How to ask questions
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Reply 2 of 9, by Qbix

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dosbox is for games.
If you want to use it for something else,then don't complain if it isn't right.
We don't want to bear responsibility for mistakes.

As DOSBox is for games, printing is not supported

Water flows down the stream
How to ask questions the smart way!

Reply 3 of 9, by SKARDAVNELNATE

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I sounds like you are you are printing an image of the screen and not text. If you can store it as a file you could reverse the colors before printing it.

Reply 4 of 9, by cebceb

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I am very grateful to the developer of this program and it has worked very well for me. My question was not in any manner a complaint.

I just wanted to know if I could reverse the text from white on black to black on white. It was certainly intended to be a question and not in any manner a complaint.

I do need help with this issue although I do not often print the results it would be helpful to be able to print black on white.

Thanks, cebceb

Reply 5 of 9, by MiniMax

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cebceb - how do you currently print from DOSBox?

DOSBox 60 seconds guide | How to ask questions
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Reply 6 of 9, by cebceb

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I have been unable to find a print function for Dosbox. So what I am doing in just capturing a screen shot and then sending to my laser printer. As you can imagine if I print a full page with white text on a black background we are talking about a lot of ink.
I have been trying to find a way to save the image to a file and then perhaps I reverse the image.

In my work I first do manual calculations and then use this old program to check my work, but sometimes my clients want a printed copy and this white on black just does not look very professional. When I bought the original program several years ago it would print black on white and it looked very good. The operating system was the one just before Windows ME and I just do not remember the number.

There must be some way to reverse the image but I do know a little about computers and at one time was very good at DOS commands. But this one has me puzzled. I still have the old laptop that I used many years ago, but it is just too much problem to get it out of storage and connect to my printer.

There must be an answer to this somewhere.

Thanks, cebceb

Reply 7 of 9, by SKARDAVNELNATE

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README.txt
CTRL-F5 to Save a screenshot. (PNG format)

Then open it in Paint and invert colors.

Reply 8 of 9, by MiniMax

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Invert colours in MS Paint = CTRL-I.

DOSBox 60 seconds guide | How to ask questions
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Reply 9 of 9, by cebceb

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I copied the screenshot into MS Paint and inverted the colors and now I can print black on white.

Thank you very much for all the help. I never had use for the Paint program so now I will take a detailed look into what it does.

Thank you, cebceb