PINADI.DOC NEC Pinwriter printer driver version 1.0, 4/27/90 for Autodesk Device Interface (ADI) version 4.0 INTRODUCTION This document explains the installation and use of PINADI.COM version 1.0, an Autodesk Device Interface (ADI) driver designed to run with NEC Pinwriter printers in conjunction with AutoCAD and AutoSketch on DOS systems. The PINADI driver was developed and is supported by NEC Technologies, Inc., not Autodesk. In no event shall NEC be liable for special, collateral, incidental, or consequential damages in connection with or arising out of the use of this driver. The sole and exclusive liability to NEC shall not exceed the purchase price of this driver. HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS The driver is suitable for use with 24-pin NEC Pinwriter printers. Some printer models can't use all of the options provided by the driver. For example, a narrow carriage printer can't handle wide plots and some models can't print in color. Please refer to your printer user's manual for details. A parallel card and cable is required. Serial output is not supported because the time required to plot would be unacceptably long. COPYING THE DRIVER SOFTWARE The PINADI printer ADI (ver 1.0) driver for AutoCAD and AutoSketch is contained in the file PINADI.COM which is 6k bytes long. You will probably want to install the driver in the same directory where you store AutoCAD or AutoSketch. Here's how to copy the driver software onto your hard disk. (The example assumes an AutoCAD directory is on drive C and is named ACAD). 1. Change to the directory where you store AutoCAD: C:> CD ACAD [Return] 2. Insert the diskette containing the file PINADI.COM in drive A. 3. Copy the driver files to your hard disk C:> COPY A:PINADI.COM [Return] INSTALLING THE DRIVER The printer ADI driver must be installed (loaded into memory) prior to entering AutoCAD. It is a "terminate and stay resident" (TSR) software program which can use up to 64K of RAM depending on how it is configured. Once loaded, it remains in memory until you turn off or reboot your computer. To install the driver: C:> PINADI [Return] The driver will then be installed with the following defaults: monochrome (black and white) printing form feed after every plot input from AutoCAD or AutoSketch (rather than from a file) output directly to the printer printer connected to parallel port 1 (LPT1) 180 x 180 dots per inch print density messages displayed on monitor (AutoSketch is off) interrupt 7B(hex) 8" paper width To change this setup, you can choose to include one or more option codes on the command line. If you use more than one code, separate each by a space. The options and codes are: code option ---- ----- C Color (default is monochrome output) F disable Formfeed after plot H or ? display this list of options on monitor Ifilename Input from a file where "filename" is the path and name of the file Ofilename Output to a file where "filename" is the path and name of the file Px Parallel port x where x = 2 or 3 (default is 1, LPT1) Rx Resolution specified by x from the following table (default is x=4): x: 1 2 3 4 5 6 horizontal dots per inch: 60 90 120 180 360 360 vertical dots per inch: 180 180 180 180 180 360 S disable display messages for AutoSketch U Uninstall driver from computer's memory Vxx use interrupt Vector number xx hex (default is 7B) W Wide paper, 13.6-inch print width (default is 8 inches) For example, to install the driver to do color printer plots (if your PINWRITER is color capable and you have the color ribbon installed): C:> PINADI C [Return] To install the driver to NOT send a form feed after each plot: C:> PINADI F [Return] (default is a form feed after every plot) To display a list of these options: C:> PINADI H or ? [Return] You can also install the driver to write plot files directly to your disk drive for later printing (this will create an output file named 'filename' on your default drive for later printing). This is useful for printing multiple copies of a plot. Using this option as a TSR with AutoCAD, you will be able to change the output file name within AutoCAD before creating each plot. The ouput file created can be directly sent to your printer using the DOS copy or print commands. See the section titled "OUTPUTTING FILES FOR DIRECT PRINTING FROM DISK" for more details: C:> PINADI Ofilename [Return] The driver can use an AutoCAD binary printer plot file as input directly from your disk drive. This option does not install the driver as a TSR. See the section titled "USE AS A POSTPROCESSOR" for more details: C:> PINADI Ifilename [Return] Note: These filenames must conform to DOS standards. To install the driver to use a different parallel port: C:> PINADI Px [Return] (here x is the new port assignment 1, 2 or 3; default is x=1 for LPT1) To set the printer resolution to 360 horzontal dots per inch by 180 vertical dots per inch: C:> PINADI R5 [Return] To install the driver to work with AutoSketch (if you use AutoSketch and don't use this option, messages will be written on the screen over your drawing): C:> PINADI S [Return] (default writes messages to the screen) To remove the installed TSR driver from your computer's memory: C:> PINADI U This uninstall option will overide other options. To avoid unpredictable results, remove this and other TSR programs in the strict reverse order that they were installed. To install the driver for a different interrupt vector (default is 7B hex): C:> PINADI Vxx [Return] (where xx is the new hexadecimal interrupt number) To install the driver for printing on wide paper (this will create a plot up to 13.6" wide): C:> PINADI W [Return] (default is 8") To install the driver using a combination of the above options: C:> PINADI Oplotdata.001 c v78 w This will do the following: 1. Create a file 'plotdata.001' of your drawing on your default drive for plotting at a later time. 2. Make a color print of the plot. 3. The interrupt vector will be 78 (in hex). 4. Allow wide plot up to 13.6 inches. MEMORY REQUIREMENTS FOR DIFFERENT CONFIGURATIONS RAM Memory required by installed driver resolution Black & White Color ------------------- ------------- ------------ x X by Y dpi narrow wide narrow wide - ------------ ------ ---- ------ ---- 1 60 x 180 4k 5k 10k 12k 2 90 x 180 5k 6k 12k 15K 3 120 x 180 6k 8k 13k 17k 4 180 x 180 7k 10k 16k 22k 5 360 x 180 11k 17k 24k 36k 6 360 x 360 20k 32k 42k 64k CONFIGURING AUTOCAD FOR THE PINWRITER DRIVER It is necessary to reconfigure AutoCAD for an installed ADI printer plotter driver. You will only need to do this before you want to use the ADI driver for the first time, or when you change the paper width or the horizontal or the vertical plot resolutions of your PINADI driver. Note the configuration of PINADI when you install it. AutoCAD's printer plotter configuration densities must be equal to the PINADI resolution for your plots to be correct. To configure AutoCAD, select the configuration option at AutoCAD's main menu. Next, select the printer-plotter configuration option. Then, select the ADI printer-plotter. You may have to tell AutoCAD where to find the generic ADI printer- plotter driver file that comes with AutoCAD. It is in a AutoCAD driver file called PPGEN.DRV. Next, answer the questions to configure an ADI printer-plotter. Be sure that you: 1. Select output format as an Installed ADI driver <2>. 2. Set the maximum horizontal (X) plot size in inches. These values are 7.99" for the standard size or 13.59" for the wide carriage printers. The vertical (Y) axis length should normally be set to your paper size. However, the length can be set longer to allow printing past the page break. 3. Set the density equal to the installed resolution (dots/inch) of the PINADI driver. If AutoCAD's density (dots/inch) is greater, your drawing will be expanded along that axis and may be clipped. If the driver's resolution is greater, your drawing will be compressed along that axis. 4. The vertical or y-axis has only 2 densities, 180 dots per inch and 360 dpi. For most printer plotting, 180 dpi should be fine. The 360 dpi vertical resolution is achieved by causing the printer to make two passes of its printhead. For further information, see: Chapter 8, the printer configuration section of the Installation & Performance Guide to AutoCAD; Chapter 13 of your main Reference Manual, for AutoCAD details; and your PINWRITER Users guide for printer details. AutoCAD will now be configured to do a printer plot using the installed PINADI driver. CREATING PLOTS WITH THE PINWRITER PRINTER DRIVER To send plots to the PINWRITER from AutoCAD's drawing editor type the AutoCAD command 'prplot' at the command line. Alternately, from AutoCAD's Main Menu, select the Printer-Plot option <4>. Make sure your printer is connected, turned on and on line, and hit return when ready. Answer the questions and confirm your choices. Then your plot will be produced on printer. AutoCAD will repeatedly loop through the vectors that make up the drawing. Note that printer plots can take a long time to produce, so don't worry if nothing happens for a while. They can take a very long time depending on the complexity of the drawing, especially if you chose color or if the plot density is high. To abort the plot, type CTRL-C. If you get an "Abort,Retry ?" message, check that your printer in on-line, and then enter R for retry. OUTPUTTING PRINTER FILES FOR DIRECT PRINTING FROM DISK You may wish to create a file that may be printed multiple times directly from disk. Once a print file is created, you can then print using the DOS copy command without running AutoCAD. CAUTION: This option should be used with care. It is possible to create very large files, larger than 8 Megabytes, if all the settings are at their maximum. If it is used with some thought it will produce good results. Here is an example: Say you want to produce a 360 x 180 dpi color plot of the columbia.dwg on 13.59" wide paper. Install the PINADI printer driver by typing: C:> PINADI R5 Ocolumbia.nec C W [Return] Configure AutoCAD as a ADI printer at 360 x 180 dpi, and a horizontal width of 13.59". Run AutoCAD and printer plot the columbia.dwg file. The file columbia.nec will be created on the default disk for later printing from the command line. You can do this by typing the line: C:> COPY COLUMBIA.NEC PRN /B [Return] In the above example, if you plotted the xtents it would create a file of 2.5 Megabytes and would take over an hour to be produced on a IBM system 30. But if you created a file of the isplay at 180 x 180 dpi for 7.99" wide paper by typing the following: C:> PINADI C Ocolumbia.nec the file columbia.nec would be only .25 Megabytes. The creation time for this file is only 5 minutes on an AT clone running at 10 Mhz. USE AS A POSTPROCESSOR The ADI driver PINADI can also work as a postprocessor, reading AutoCAD ADI binary files from your disk and sending them directly to the printer. Printer plot to an ADI binary printer file from AutoCAD or AutoSketch 2.0. This is done by configuring AutoCAD or AutoSketch for binary-file output rather than for the installed interrupt driver. Then, when the Autodesk product is no longer running, you may use PINADI to plot from the binary file to your Pinwriter printer. Here's an example: You want to produce a 360x360 dpi color plot of columbia.dwg on 13.59" wide paper. First you run AutoCAD's configuration program to select the ADI Printer, plot to binary file, 360x360 dots per inch, and 13.6" horizontal paper width. Use the PRPLOT command in AutoCAD. This produces a binary printer plot file called "columbia.prp". Next, exit AutoCAD and plot the drawing by invoking: PINADI Icolumbia.prp C R6 W This will cause PINADI to make a plot of the contents of the file "columbia.prp" in color at 360 x 360 dpi on wide paper. When the plot is done, PINADI will vanish from memory (it does not install itself as it would if you wanted to plot directly from AutoCAD). If you added Ocolumbia.nec to the above command line, the data wouldn't be sent to the printer. A file named columbia.nec would be created. See the above section above titled "OUTPUTTING PRINTER FILES FOR DIRECT PRINTING FROM DISK" for details. AutoSketch 2.0 supports this feature. Earlier versions did not create binary plot files. USE WITH AUTOSKETCH The PINADI driver may be used with AutoSketch. Just remember to use the S code on the control line. Failure to do this will cause driver messages to printed on the AutoSketch screen, overwriting the drawing displayed there. Before you install this driver for AutoSketch, make sure that your printer is turned on and is on-line. If it is not, the driver might not be installed and an error message will appear telling you that it wasn't installed. Before every plot from AutoSketch using this ADI driver, you must make sure that the printer is turned on, connected and on line. Failure to do this will return you to the drawing screen with out any error messages. If the printer goes off-line, runs out of paper or becomes disconnected at any time during the plot, no more data will be sent to the printer and you will be returned to the drawing screen again without any error messages. Therefore if your drawing is not being plotted at all or stops plotting and you are returned to the drawing editor, make sure the printer has paper, is turned on, connected and is on line. AutoSketch must be reconfigured so that it knows you will be using an ADI driver to do printer plots. To initiate AutoSketch's reconfiguration type: C:>SKETCH /R [Return] Configure AutoSketch's plotter as a Autodesk Device Interface Printer <3>. AutoSketch will then prompt you to give it more information regarding this ADI driver. See the previous section titled 'CONFIGURING AUTOCAD FOR THE PINWRITER PRINTER DRIVER' and the ADI Plotter section in Appendix B in your AutoSketch Users Guide. AutoSketch prompts you to indicate how your plotter is connected to your computer, choose: 2. Parallel port, system printer, or hardware handshake serial port. Then follow the instructions in Configuring AutoSketch in Chapter 2 of the AutoSketch Users Guide. Remember this ADI driver can only be used as a parallel device. Note that when you open the plot area dialogue box, the values for x and y may be incorrect. Set them now, to the size of the paper you have in your printer. Rotating the plot may also be helpful. For color printing, be sure to set PEN INFO for each drawing. Otherwise all of the colors will be printed as color 1 which is red. COLOR ASSIGNMENTS For color printing, the PINWRITER uses a four-color ribbon. The PINWRITER driver will print in order the ribbon colors yellow (Y), magenta (M), cyan (C), and black (B). This will produce the following AutoCAD colors: Number AutoCAD color Printed color Ribbon color(s) ------ ------------- ------------- --------------- 0 no print 1 red orange Y M 2 yellow yellow Y 3 green green Y C 4 cyan cyan C 5 blue violet C M 6 magenta magenta M 7 white black B 8 brown M B 9 black Y M C 10 dark violet M C B 11 yellow black Y B 12 olive Y C B 13 light brown Y M B 14 grey C B 15 deep black Y M C B Color numbers 16 through 255 cycle through the same colors as 0 through 15. TIPS AND HINTS Here are some tips for using the PINADI driver: 1. If you will use the driver with every session of AutoCAD, you may want to place the PINADI command in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file with the correct options set, because you must install the Printer driver after every reset of your system. Or put the PINADI command in a batch file which you use to invoke AutoCAD or AutoSketch. Also put the command PINADI U at the end of this batch file to remove the driver from memory when it is no longer needed. 2. The Printer must be connected, turned on, and on line before you plot a file using the driver. 3. Do not turn the Printer on and off in the middle of a plotting session. An error message will be displayed if you try to use the driver while the Printer is turned off. 4. If you are using the tractor feed, make sure you've advanced the paper far enough to have the paper bail contact the platen. Be sure the top cover is in place and all rollers are guiding the paper. If not, the paper may not advance uniformly, creating discontinuities in the plot. 5. In color mode, for optimum color clarity and ribbon life, avoid using resolution 360x360 and colors 9 through 15. These tend to cause contamination of the lighter ribbon bands by darker ink that is already on the paper. This can cause later printing of light colors to be marked by spots of darker color. 6. If you are using this ADI driver with AutoSketch in a color mode make sure that you configure EACH AutoSketch drawing's Pen Info for the different colors. If you don't, your entire drawing will plot in the default color red. 7. You will find that high density and color plots take much longer to complete than low density and monochrome plots. 9. Note that the different density options use different amounts of memory in your computer. High density plots need a lot of memory. They also take a long time to complete. Color adds greatly to the memory and time requirements. Memory used up by drivers is subtracted from the memory your drawings need when you run AutoSketch. AutoCAD doesn't have that problem, but there still is limited memory available for use by drivers. The PINADI driver uses special data compression techniques to minimize memory use. In color mode, if memory requirments get to great, the driver conserves memory by automatically printing narrower bands for each pass of the print head. 10. It is good practice to save your work before begining a printer plot. Sometime when aborting a plot, especially if the printer has not been set on-line properly, DOS will kick you out of AutoCAD and back to the DOS command line. If this happens, unsaved work may be lost. AutoCAD, AutoSketch and ADI are registered trademarks of Autodesk, Inc. END PINADI.DOC