Today I have been installing VAX MP on the new toy, a rather noisy HP DL380 G5. I’d found an issue identifying non hyperthreaded processors that has been very graciously fixed, but as the server is currently sat on the dining room table I dare not start it up again in the middle of the night.
So I started thinking about this idea I had of printing the Unix timeline on the PP404 wide-carriage dot matrix printer that is far too under-utilised in my attic.
Unix Timeline Snippet
This post is more a brain dump of ideas. I did think that maybe an incarnation of Brøderbund’s The Print Shop (remarkably still available for purchase) would be my best bet, but I’ve come to the conclusion that given the amount of effort I’m prepared to put into this venture it’s going to end up being a Unix Free-Software solution or nothing. I’m dealing with far too much emulator fun and games at the moment to consider setting up another one for a task like this. In my search I did come across this entertaining (if rather vulgar) review of Kyocera Unison’s PrintMaster Plus 2.0.
So current thinking is to is Ghostscript to print the Unix Timeline PDF to a very long Epson ESC/P2 formatted file and print that.
The PP404 has a maximum resolution of 360×360 DPI in double pass mode. Looking on Wikipedia, as I couldn’t remember, the two common sizes for Continuous Stationary are:
- 241mm x 279mm (9.5in x 11in)
- 381mm x 279mm (15in x 11in)
So the maximum height of a timeline printout, given a 0.5 inch margin left and right would be 14 inches which equates to a vertical resolution for the Unix Timeline image of 5,040 pixels. Sounds reasonable. Okular, the Ubuntu PDF viewer has this to say about the timeline PDF:
Unix Timeline PDF Info
Then I thought, I wonder what devices the version of ghostscript I have installed on my Ubuntu 14.10 based laptop supports? There was a time, back in the day, when I would compile up new versions of ghostscript from source and have to select the set of supported printers.Blimey, it’s been a while since I’ve done that. Now we have continuous integration servers to do this for us. It would appear that pretty much the whole world is built in these days:
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msw@x220:~/Videos$ gs -h GPL Ghostscript 9.10 (2013-08-30) Copyright (C) 2013 Artifex Software, Inc. All rights reserved. Usage: gs [switches] [file1.ps file2.ps ...] Most frequently used switches: (you can use # in place of =) -dNOPAUSE no pause after page | -q `quiet', fewer messages -g<width>x<height> page size in pixels | -r<res> pixels/inch resolution -sDEVICE=<devname> select device | -dBATCH exit after last file -sOutputFile=<file> select output file: - for stdout, |command for pipe, embed %d or %ld for page # Input formats: PostScript PostScriptLevel1 PostScriptLevel2 PostScriptLevel3 PDF Default output device: x11alpha Available devices: alc1900 alc2000 alc4000 alc4100 alc8500 alc8600 alc9100 ap3250 appledmp atx23 atx24 atx38 bbox bit bitcmyk bitrgb bitrgbtags bj10e bj10v bj10vh bj200 bjc600 bjc800 bjc880j bjccmyk bjccolor bjcgray bjcmono bmp16 bmp16m bmp256 bmp32b bmpgray bmpmono bmpsep1 bmpsep8 ccr cdeskjet cdj1600 cdj500 cdj550 cdj670 cdj850 cdj880 cdj890 cdj970 cdjcolor cdjmono cdnj500 cfax chp2200 cif cljet5 cljet5c cljet5pr coslw2p coslwxl cp50 cups declj250 deskjet devicen dfaxhigh dfaxlow display dj505j djet500 djet500c dl2100 dnj650c epl2050 epl2050p epl2120 epl2500 epl2750 epl5800 epl5900 epl6100 epl6200 eplcolor eplmono eps9high eps9mid epson epsonc epswrite escp escpage faxg3 faxg32d faxg4 fmlbp fmpr fs600 gdi hl1240 hl1250 hl7x0 hpdj1120c hpdj310 hpdj320 hpdj340 hpdj400 hpdj500 hpdj500c hpdj510 hpdj520 hpdj540 hpdj550c hpdj560c hpdj600 hpdj660c hpdj670c hpdj680c hpdj690c hpdj850c hpdj855c hpdj870c hpdj890c hpdjplus hpdjportable ibmpro ijs imagen inferno inkcov iwhi iwlo iwlq jetp3852 jj100 jpeg jpegcmyk jpeggray la50 la70 la75 la75plus laserjet lbp310 lbp320 lbp8 lex2050 lex3200 lex5700 lex7000 lips2p lips3 lips4 lips4v lj250 lj3100sw lj4dith lj4dithp lj5gray lj5mono ljet2p ljet3 ljet3d ljet4 ljet4d ljet4pjl ljetplus ln03 lp1800 lp1900 lp2000 lp2200 lp2400 lp2500 lp2563 lp3000c lp7500 lp7700 lp7900 lp8000 lp8000c lp8100 lp8200c lp8300c lp8300f lp8400f lp8500c lp8600 lp8600f lp8700 lp8800c lp8900 lp9000b lp9000c lp9100 lp9200b lp9200c lp9300 lp9400 lp9500c lp9600 lp9600s lp9800c lps4500 lps6500 lq850 lxm3200 lxm5700m m8510 mag16 mag256 md1xMono md2k md50Eco md50Mono md5k mgr4 mgr8 mgrgray2 mgrgray4 mgrgray8 mgrmono miff24 mj500c mj6000c mj700v2c mj8000c ml600 necp6 npdl nullpage oce9050 oki182 oki4w okiibm oprp opvp paintjet pam pamcmyk32 pamcmyk4 pbm pbmraw pcl3 pcx16 pcx24b pcx256 pcx256 pcx2up pcxcmyk pcxgray pcxmono pdfwrite pdfwrite pgm pgmraw pgnm pgnmraw photoex picty180 pj pjetxl pjxl pjxl300 pkm pkmraw pksm pksmraw plan plan9bm planc plang plank planm png16 png16m png256 png48 pngalpha pnggray pngmono pnm pnmraw ppm ppmraw pr1000 pr1000_4 pr150 pr201 ps2write psdcmyk psdrgb pwgraster pxlcolor pxlmono r4081 rinkj rpdl samsunggdi sgirgb sj48 spotcmyk st800 stcolor sunhmono svg t4693d2 t4693d4 t4693d8 tek4696 tiff12nc tiff24nc tiff32nc tiff48nc tiff64nc tiffcrle tiffg3 tiffg32d tiffg4 tiffgray tifflzw tiffpack tiffscaled tiffsep tiffsep1 txtwrite uniprint x11 x11alpha x11cmyk x11cmyk2 x11cmyk4 x11cmyk8 x11gray2 x11gray4 x11mono xcf xes xpswrite Search path: /home/msw/.fonts : /usr/share/ghostscript/9.10/Resource/Init : /usr/share/ghostscript/9.10/lib : /usr/share/ghostscript/9.10/Resource/Font : /usr/share/ghostscript/fonts : /var/lib/ghostscript/fonts : /usr/share/cups/fonts : /usr/share/ghostscript/fonts : /usr/local/lib/ghostscript/fonts : /usr/share/fonts Ghostscript is also using fontconfig to search for font files For more information, see /usr/share/doc/ghostscript/Use.htm. Please report bugs to bugs.ghostscript.com. |
I have the PP404 set up by default to emulate an Epson LQ-2500 – there looks to be several possibilities – escp, epson? EPL2500 is apparently a laser printer driver.
First hurdle to overcome might be this however:
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msw@x220:~/Documents/rc201501$ pdf2ps unix-plotter.pdf **** Warning: considering '0000000000 XXXXX n' as a free entry. **** This file had errors that were repaired or ignored. **** The file was produced by: **** >>>> Mac OS X 10.10.1 Quartz PDFContext <<<< **** Please notify the author of the software that produced this **** file that it does not conform to Adobe's published PDF **** specification. |