The RISC OS Printers
On a "real" Acorn computer the printer driver sends its output directly to the parallel printer port, this can be quite slow, especially on older Acorn machines. VirtualRPC-SA uses a different method. The RISC OS printer drivers print to a hidden file, which is then processed by the Windows Printing System. This means that printing should be considerably faster and will not tie up RISC OS while printing happens.
In order to print to your printer you will need to ensure that RISC OS has a suitable printer driver. All of the printer drivers are contained in the folder called Printing on HardDisc4.
As you can see different printer manufacturers have their own directories. Please note that RISC OS does not support a number of modern "Windows" GDI printers. If you cannot find a suitable printer driver (also called a Printer Definition File) for your printer then you will be unable to print. If however, you have Windows 98 or Windows ME you can try downloading the Beta versions of the Universal Printer Driver from the download section of the VirtualAcorn website. Versions of the Universal Printer Driver for Windows 2000 and Windows XP will be released when they are ready.
In order to print from RISC OS you must have both a Windows printer driver and a RISC OS printer driver for your printer. Often you will find that printer definition files intended for older printers will work with new ones. For example almost any Hewlett Packard LaserJet printer can be driven using an older (e.g. LaserJet 4) printer definition file.
The first thing to do is to find !Printers (the printer manager). This will be on the left hand end of the RISC OS icon bar, and will have a grey icon if no printer drivers have been configured. Now click once on its icon with SELECT (Left mouse Button) to open the Printer Control window.
Now find the appropriate printer driver in the HardDisc4.$.Printing.Printers folder and drag that printer driver into the Printer Control window.
You will see the printer driver appear in the window. The connection will be shown as Parallel. This connection needs to be changed in order to print. Press MENU (middle mouse button) over the name of your printer. Now click on Connection... on the menu. The printer connection window will now open.
As you can see the option Parallel is selected. The File option needs to be selected instead. Once File has been selected we need to type in the hidden path name for the printer. This can easily be found by double clicking on the ShowPrinters obey file in the HardDisc4.$.Printing directory.
In this example we are going to configure !Printers to print to the HP_LaserJet_4L printer that has been located by ShowPrinters.
We now need to type in the file name that will be used for printing. We take the printer name, in the example above HP_LaserJet_4L and add the HostFS path name to the front. The entire name then becomes HostFS::HP_LaserJet_4L. Note the use of the two colons (::) to separate the HostFS and the HP_LaserJet_4L parts of the printer name. In order to type the _ (underscore) character hold down SHIFT and press the - (minus) key next to equals. Once you have typed in the correct name for your printer click on the OK button. If the name has been typed correctly then the printer Connections window will close. If you have typed the name incorrectly then you will get a Disc not found error message. Check the name and correct any mistakes before clicking on the OK button again.
All that now needs to be done is to save the printer settings, so that every time you load !Printers it remembers what printer you have. To do this click Menu over the !Printers icon on the icon bar and then click on Save choices. That is it, now try a test print from one of the RISC OS programs. If the print is successful then you have finished, if not then re-check the name you have given the printer in the Connections File dialogue box. You may decide to alter the colours and/or print resolution of your printer driver. To do this hold down Shift and click Select on the Printer icon on the icon bar. Having made any changes don't forget to Save choices.
Since VirtualRPC-SA uses some parts of the Windows printing system you can easily print to a network printer, provided that the PC that is running VirtualRPC-SA has the network printer drivers installed. If a printer appears in the Windows print dialogue box, and RISC OS supports that printer then you can print to it.
To use a network printer proceed in exactly the same way as you would for a local (connected directly to your PC) printer.
VRPC manual - draft number 150.001 10th May 2006