STAR48E.DOC ----------- The Epson (ADI) Printer Driver (STAR48E.EXE 1.0) for AutoCAD (TM) ADI (TM) Copyright 1989, 1990, Autodesk, Inc. Revision 1.0 April 27, 1992 License is granted for the use of this software and documentation on a no-charge, sharing basis. You may distribute and copy this software freely as long as it remains a completely unaltered package and is not sold for profit. INTRODUCTION This document explains the installation and use of STAR48E.EXE ver 1.0, an Autodesk Device Interface (ADI) driver designed to run with STAR SJ-48 in conjunction with AutoCAD. This driver was developed by STAR Micronics Deutschland GmbH and does not represent an endorsement of any particular product, including any of the STAR printers. Autodesk, Inc. makes no warranty, either expressed or implied, including but not limited to any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose, regarding these materials and makes such materials available on an "as-is" basis. HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS The hardware requirements specific to using the STAR48E printer ADI driver with AutoCAD. o This driver is suitable for use with STAR SJ-48 o A parallel card and cable is required as described in the AutoCAD Installation & Performance Guide. o Serial output is not supported because the time required to plot would be unacceptably long. HARDWARE INSTALLATION The STAR printer must be connected to the computer with a standard Centronics-type parallel cable. Chapter 8 of the AutoCAD Installation & Performance Guide contains all the information regarding pin connections and switch settings. COPYING THE DRIVER SOFTWARE The STAR48E printer ADI (ver 1.0) driver for AutoCAD is 16k bytes long. The disk also contains a file STAR48E.HLP for on-line command line options. You will probably want to install the driver in the same directory where you store AutoCAD. 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 ADI Driver diskette in drive A. 3. Copy the driver files to your hard disk: C:> COPY A:STAR48E.* [Return] INSTALLING THE ADI STAR48E DRIVER The AutoCAD STAR 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 77K 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:> STAR48E [Return] The STAR ADI driver will then be installed with the following defaults: o Interrupt 7b(hex) o 180 x 180 Dots per inch print density o 8" Paper width o Output directly to printer o Input from AutoCAD o form feed after every plot To change this setup, you can choose to include one or more options on the command line. These options are: -lx parallel port x -f plot from a file -v interrupt # -p no form feed -8 8pins -o plot to a file -q quarter sized mode -dx density x To set the horizontal plot density C:> STAR48E -Dx [Return] (where x is 1 to 6 in the following table): (default is 180 x 180) x Horizontal Vertical Density Density 1 60 180 2 90 180 3 120 180 4 180 180 5 360 180 6 360 360 You can also install the driver to write plot files directly to your disk drive for later printing (this will create a file named 'fname' on your default drive for later printing). This is useful for printing multiple copies of a plot. See the section titled "OUTPUTTING STAR48E PRINTER FILES FOR DIRECT PRINTING FROM DISK" for more details: C:> STAR48E -Ofname [Return] You can use the driver to read AutoCAD Binary printer plot files directly from your disk drive. This allows you to use plotting modes which would use too much memory for plotting from AutoCAD as a TSR. This option does not install the driver as a TSR, and may be used repeatedly. See the section titled "USE AS A POSTPROCESSOR" for more details: C:> STAR48E -Ffname [Return] Note: These filenames must conform to DOS standards. To install the driver for printing in Quarter Sized Mode. Automatically the paper width set to 13.6" C:> STAR48E -Q [Return] To install the driver to only use 8 pins of the print head (will require much less the RAM for the TSR, but will print more slowly): C:> STAR48E -8 [Return] (default is the 24 pins) To install the driver to use a different parallel port: C:> STAR48E -Lx [Return] (where x is the new port assignment 1, 2 or 3) (default is LPT1) To install the driver to not send a form feed after each plot: C:> STAR48E -P [Return] (default is a form feed after every plot) To install the driver for a different interrupt vector (default is 7B hex): C:> STAR48E -Vxx [Return] (where xx is the new interrupt number) To display a list of these options: C:> STAR48E -H or -? [Return] Prints a help message from star24e.hlp To install the driver using a combination of the above options: C:> STAR48E -Oplotdata.plt -v7b -8 This will do the following: 1. Create a plot file 'plotdata.plt' of your drawing on your default drive for plotting at a later time. 2. The interrupt vector will be 78 (in hex). 3. Will only use 8 pins. MEMORY REQUIREMENTS FOR DIFFERENT CONFIGURATIONS RAM Memory required by driver (8" wide plot) n density Black & White ------------------------------------------------ X x Y 1 = 60 x 180 dpi 19k 2 = 90 x 180 dpi 20k 3 = 120 x 180 dpi 20k 4 = 180 x 180 dpi (default) 22k 5 = 360 x 180 dpi 26k 6 = 360 x 360 dpi 35k ** Note: There are only 2 densities in the vertical direction. If you do not have AutoCAD and this driver configured for the same dots per inch, your drawing may be expanded or compressed in the y-axis. ** Note: Each time you type in the command STAR48E (except for the special case of the "F" option for plotting binary files), another copy of the driver software is loaded into memory, using up to 82k more bytes of RAM. You need to "reboot" the system (to clear out the any copies of STAR48E.EXE). CONFIGURING AUTOCAD FOR THE STAR48E SJ-48 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 STAR48E ADI driver for the first time, or when you change the paper width or the horizontal or the vertical plot densities of your STAR ADI. Note the present configuration of STAR48E.EXE when you install it. AutoCAD's printer plotter configuration densities must be equal for your plots to be correct. Reconfigure AutoCAD for an installed printer plotter ADI driver <2>. 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 should be set to your paper size, 10.5 is a good value. 3. Set the density equal to the installed density of the driver STAR48E.EXE. If AutoCAD's density (dots/inch) is greater, your drawing will be expanded along that axis and may be clipped. If the drivers density is greater, your drawing will be compressed along that axis. 4. The vertical or y-axis has only 2 densities, 180 dots/inch and 360 dpi. For most printer plotting, 180 dpi should be fine. See the 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 STAR48E Users guide for printer details. AutoCAD will now be configured to do a printer plot using the installed STAR48E ADI driver. CREATING PRINTER PLOTS WITH THE STAR48E SJ-48 DRIVER To send plots to the STAR printer from AutoCAD's drawing editor select Plot then Printer from the AutoCAD menu or type 'prplot' at the command line. From AutoCAD's Main Menu select Printer Plot <4>. Make sure your printer is connected, turned on and on line and hit return when ready. Your plot will be produced on your STAR 24 pin printer. ** Note: printer plots 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, if you chose color or if the plot density is high. OUTPUTTING STAR48E PRINTER FILES FOR DIRECT PRINTING FROM DISK You may wish to create a file that may be printed multiple times directly from disk. You can do this with the DOS copy command without running AutoCAD or STAR48E driver after the file is created. CAUTION: This option should be used with care. It is possible to create a file 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 plot of the site-3d.dwg on 13.59" wide paper. Install the STAR48E ADI printer driver by typing: C:> STAR48E -d5 -Osite-3d.eps -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 site-3d.dwg file. The file site-3d.eps will be created on the default disk for later printing from the command line. You can print the file from the DOS command line by typing: C:> COPY SITE-3D.EPS PRN /B [Return] In the above example, if you plotted the xtents it would create a file of 3 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:> STAR48E -Osite-3d.eps the file site-3d.eps would be only .3 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 STAR48E.EXE can 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. Then, when the Autodesk product is no longer running, you may use STAR48E.EXE to plot from the binary file to your STAR printer. Here's an example: You want to produce a 360x360 dpi plot of site-3d.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 "site-3d.prp". Next, exit AutoCAD and plot the drawing by invoking: STAR48E -Fsite-3d.prp -D6 -W This will cause STAR48E.EXE to make a plot of the contents of the file "site-3d.prp" at 360 x 360 dpi on wide paper. When the plot is done, STAR48E.EXE will vanish from memory (it does not install itself as it would if you wanted to plot directly from AutoCAD). **Note: If you added -Osite-3d.epp to the above command line, the data wouldn't be sent to the printer but a file named site-3d.epp would be created. See the above section titled "OUTPUTTING STAR48E PRINTER FILES FOR DIRECT PRINTING FROM DISK" for details. NOTES ON OPERATION: AutoCAD TIPS AND HINTS for the STAR48E ADI Driver 1. If you will use the STAR48E ADI driver with every session of AutoCAD, you may want to place the STAR48E.EXE command in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file with the correct options set, because you must install the Printer driver after every reset of your system. 2. The Printer must be connected, turned on, and on line before you plot a file using the STAR48E ADI 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 ADI STAR48E driver while the Printer is turned off. 4. If you're using the tractor feed, make sure you've advanced the paper far enough for the paper bail contact the platen. 5. You will find that high density and/or color plots take much longer to complete than low density and/or monochrome plots. AutoCAD and ADI are registered trademarks of Autodesk, Inc. IBM, PC, XT, AT are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation.