With you beaut printers coming down in price like never before I bought a Canon iP3000 printer connected it up to USB port then tried to run my uncompiled Quickbasic DOS based programs to produce the usual printout on the printer. There is no warning on the outside of the Canon box that it has only one port although it does show that system requirements are a USB port. But printers in the past always have had two options Serial * Parallel or USB & Parallel.
Not an easy task apparently, and may even be not possible, although one source on the Internet says it can be done. We tried their solution but without success.
Unfortunately you only find out when you unpack the iP3000 and read the manual, that if you want the usual two types of connection, (USB & Parallel), you must buy the iP4000 printer ( now only $10 dearer anyway, but too late once you have unpacked). I am presuming that being able to print to a parallel port the problem of the LPT1 port used with DOS based programs would resolve the problem but not even sure of that.
Has anyone been confronted with this problem and found a solution or can any one give guidance on where to look for a solution or how to solve this problem. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
I must admit you do get a beautiful printout on the iP3000 when you print from a Windows package like Publisher etc. However when you are printing Share analyses you are not particularly interested in the picture but more in the substance. Perhaps I did buy the wrong printer for a workhorse. Still,easy come easy go, and with the cost of replacement ink tanks it may be cheaper to throw this printer away now.
Yes I know I should upgrade/rewrite my programs in Visual Basic, to work like a real Windows based program. Thanks in advance. Cheers

cungevoi

Sometimes you can get dos programs to "print to file" and you can then open the file in notepad and print it.

This does not work for all programs however. We had some old Dos utilities that we can no longer use because they can no longer print. I have not found any universal solution.

Having a printer connected to a parellel port won't necessarily solve the problem. Some printers will print from dos, others won't.

Another solution is to get an old dos enabled printer and connect to the parallel port. Print to this one when it is from a dos program and to the new printer for windows stuff.

Visual basic is okay for simple things once you get used to it. Calculations and so forth would be the same as in quickbasic and if you are not happy with printing from VB, you can start by creating a text file with the results, then print that from notepad.

You should be able to get a Visual Basic book from the library.


Cheers

LJ

Hi Cgv,

I have found a few answers here before

http://ask-leo.com/askleo.html

read the feedback as well as his answers

Good luck

Macca

Thanks Lainie, I have now reconnected old Canon BJC210 SP so that I can continue with DOS program output. Nice new Printer will probably go to Grandkids. Have yet to try saving printer output to file and then reloading and printing file to new printer. When Edit/Mark and edit/save is used then into Notepad and print on new printer, I think I lose formatting and this gives a problem. Life is getting harder all the time.
I have resisted the Visual Basic challenge for some years now and may continue to sidestep it. Just hope Canon continue supporting the old BJC 210 SP for a few more years, and that will about see me out. Cheers

cungevoi

If one printer is USB and one parallel, you can keep both connected and use one for dos only and the other when you want quality printing from windows.

When you print, you can choose which printer to use in the dialogue box. Set the dos one as the default LPT1 and choose the other one when you print from a windows application.



Macca

Thank you for the leo site. It looks very helpful for a lot of tech stuff. I have bookmarked it.



Cheers

LJ

Thanks MACCA for the LEO site; I owe you a copy of the final program if It ever gets finished and works accurately.

Hi Cgv,
I have found a few answers here before
http://ask-leo.com/askleo.html
read the feedback as well as his answers
Good luck

I have been struggling on with the Visual Basic 6 version of my CGVI software with the help of Wabbit, Just wish i had persevered with VB6 many years ago, as it is a very interesting language, even though it is getting to the unsupported stage, however it will see me out.
Wish someone had told me to just load my old program into the VB6 environment and the attempted running of it will fault on any line that has to be changed. Ah well we live and sometimes learn.

I had produced a very clear layout of my VB 6 converted Version of the program and although I could print the Initial Screen without the data and without the calculated results showing, I could not capture or print the screen once the program had executed and the required information was showing. I re- stumbled over your ( Macca), post above and looked at the FAQ section on the site and VOILA there was a simple blow by blow description of exactly how to do it. It was so simple I had forgotten to go back and try the basics.
The Sequence is ( Thanks to site ASK LEO )
1. with window & Screen to print in view, press CTRL & PRTSCN
2. Select START ~ All Programs ~ Accessories ~ PAINT
3. EDIT then Paste and Image saved in clipboard is presented
4. Select FILE and then Save AS (give it a name you can recall)
5. You can then Print that file or attach it to an email for sending.
You can save as jpeg, gif or leave as bitmap, but latter is largest size.
PRTSCN takes the whole screen
ALT PRTSCN takes the current active window.

Anyway I can now capture and Print or send a file copy as an email attachment, of the screen for viewing, and critiqueing, although I can thankfully do without the latter.
By the way I still can't get the old Dos program to output to the USB printer, but now I can capture hard copy from the New program to the USB in colour, I can start to pension off the old printer. So it truly is a Visual and colourful screen under VB 6. Now I have to make sure it works accurately, and meaningfully.
Still a work in Progress. Cheers

I did not see it, but is there an adaptor Old printer to USB

Why I say that is, while ago I had to replace mouse in a hurry and all I could get was old pin type mouse with USB to pin adaptor, but it worked, actually still works.

Ask at the local frinedly computer store, technician can cook something up for you.

Thanks G for your comment, but now I have progressed forward I don't think I want to go Backwards. May not have to convert my other DOS programs now that method from ASK LEO site does all I need. Do a GOOGLE ON DOS2USB and BAHKTI.

Problem now solved by software from BHAKTEE Software called DOS2USB. You can download free for short period for test purpose; it does work okay and conversion about 99% correct, minor spacing and minimal character dropout, but now resolved. Cost is about $20 US and about $23 Australian. Cheers.

We had the same problem with an old dos word game that my daughter liked. We never found a fix for it and we tried everything. We found a windows version of the game, but it was not as good.

It is not, unfortunately, just a matter of changing the printer from a USB connection, it is deep down in the printer drivers provided for the printer. DOS likes a simple output and wants to talk directly to the hardware in ASCII text. ie DOS says print a letter and the printer processes the command and prints the letter. The newer printers just don't support this as they want everything in a graphics format, not text.

For a long time we had a printer that could do both DOS and windows output, so we were still able to play the game even though we had windows, but that printer was long ago sent to the graveyard. It would seem quite simple for a printer to be programmed to do both, but for some reason the newer ones are not.


Cheers

LJ

Hi CGV,

Glad it helped you, it has sorted out a few for me and as I am a complete dummy it has to be good

Macca

Downloaded latest version of BHAKTEE's DOS TO USB Printer conversion < DOS2USB > software and whereas I had to convert some code with the trial version used some years back, this latest version completed the printouts without change. Cost of $US 19.99, AU $23.03 for the software has saved me the conversion of some 3000 lines of Quickbasic code. Had attempted to convert this program to Visual Basic but never got very far.
Now I can use the exact same Quickbasic code, with no change, and I get the reports I need. Great piece of software.
I can also pension off my old printer, its costly ink cartridge, and all printing comes out on my USB modern printer.
Downloading the software, testing it's operation, placing an order, making safe payment, receiving a product key all over the internet was a breeze. Cheers