EPSON.COM KERMIT DISTRIBUTION JANUARY 1990 The EPSON.COM program is a utility that lets you print IBM PC EGA graphics screens on Epson FX and RX printers, just as the IBM-supplied GRAPHICS.COM program lets you print CGA graphics screens on IBM printers. Here is the author's note: This routine is public domain for those of you who bought an EGA and enhanced monitor and determined that you could no longer do a Shift_Print_Screen in mode 10h (16). If you have an IBM compatible and an Epson FX series printer then this routine will replace the GRAPHICS.COM routine. I also have routines for Radio Shack DMP printers with 8 pins (but only 7 usable for graphics) and for HP LaserJet printers when used with an EGA. Enjoy... Dr. R. Brooks Van Horn, Jr. INSTALLATION OF EPSON.COM First make sure you have not run IBM's GRAPHICS.COM. If you have, then remove the invocation of GRAPHICS.COM from your AUTOEXEC.BAT file and reboot your PC (Ctrl-Alt-Del). Run EPSON.COM only once after you start your PC. Once you start the program, it installs itself in memory as a DOS-level printer driver for the remainder of your DOS session, occupying about 2K of memory. There is no way to remove it. To avoid memory fragmentation, it is best to run EPSON.COM from your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. For example, if you have placed EPSON.COM in the top-level (root) directory of your C disk, you would add this line to AUTOEXEC.BAT: C:\EPSON.COM This will install EPSON.COM automatically every time you boot your PC. USING EPSON.COM To print your current screen, hold down the Shift key and press Print Screen or PrtSc. For TEXT SCREENS, printing will be normal, across the page, and you may also turn printing on and off using Ctrl-Print-Screen or Ctrl-PrtSc. GRAPHICS SCREEN images will come out sideways on the printer, left side on top. Make sure your screen background color is set to black (for example, using the MS-DOS Kermit command SET TERMINAL COLOR 0), or else the printout will be solid black. PROBLEMS This program apparently does not recover from Offline indications (that happen, for example, when the printer runs out of paper), so if you have a long graphics screen, make sure you have enough paper. BUILDING FROM SOURCE The EPSON.COM program is furnished on the MS-DOS Kermit 3.0 Distribution Diskette. Also included is the assembly-language source file, EPSON.ASM. If you want to rebuild the program from the source, do this: MASM EPSON; LINK EPSON; EXE2BIN EPSON.EXE EPSON.COM DIR EPSON If you don't see EPSON.COM in the directory listing, but you do see EPSON.BIN, do this: REN EPSON.BIN EPSON.COM Now copy the EPSON.COM file to the disk and directory you want to run it from. Programmers are encouraged to adapt this program to work with other kinds of display adapters (such as the VGA, Hercules, etc), and other kinds of printers (like Postscript), and submit their work to Columbia University for further distribution. End of file EPSON.HLP.