[Coco] Re: Coco printer primer...

[Torsten Dittel]

> If you get a serial to parallel adapter for the coco, you can use any
> print with a parallel port that doesn't require a driver to use.  If a
> printer supports MSDOS, it should work.

The question is if the Printer is "talking" any "language" e.g. ESCP/2,
PCL6 or PostsSript Level 3. Most modern cheap printers (which are USB
only anyway) have no own "intelligence", they can't generate fonts
themselves. Those printers are called "GDI printers" because the
"Graphical Device Interface" is doing all the logical work (like in a
window of Word), e.g. rasterizing the TrueType fonts. All data is
transmitted as bitmap graphics to the printer.

Many mid price laser printers emulate ESCP/2 and/or an IBM ProPrinter
which was common for dot matrix needle printers in the CoCo era, so
using them with CoCo software should not be a problem.

Best regards,
Torsten