| Anti-Aliasing (or Smoothing on later V1.3 Preferences) is a technique
used to remove the "jaggies" common on dot matrix graphics mode
output. For example, try a printing a Pagesetter or ProWrite file
using Anti-Aliasing ON and then again with it OFF. You'll se a
noticeable difference. Printing with Anti-Aliasing ON takes nearly
three times longer per page than with it OFF. It has not effect
on normal text printing.
The various density options are printer specific. If you have an
Epson "Q" model printer (24 pins), there are 4 graphics density
settings (1,2,3, and 4) representing 90x90, 90x180, 180x180, and 180x360. Epson
"X" series printers (9 pins) have two density choices (1 and 2).
Let's see -- what else? Oh, another neat feature is the Bounded
option. Try it, and set the size to 3.0" x 5.0". It'll reduce the
size of a printed picture or screen dump to that defined size on
your printer. Don't use Anti-Aliasing with Bounded though -- you'll
get a Guru error.
The Gray scales are also interesting. You'll probably never use
Gray2. It basically uses little dots and x's and produces a rougher
looking printed output.
|
| there was a description of all of them in usenet a day or so
back...sorry, but read, and deleted my copy ;-( but looks like
a lot of neat stuff to force the printer to "behave" better when
trying to make screen "pixels" match with printer "pixels" (ie the
dots/inch)
if specific questions as to function, post, and I'll try my best
to remember...or anyone save the posting??
scott.
|
|
A buddy of mine ordered and then (he thought) canceled Michigan
Software's Kwikstart, for his A1000, from ABEL. It arrived today!
In considering whether to return it or not (ABEL DID give him an
RA#) the subject of 1.3 came to mind.
He phoned Michigan Software and their commentary was that the only
difference between KS 1.2 and 1.3 was the hard drive boot
capability, and that if that wasn't a necessity or possible for
the owner (given the hard drive / controller you were using) then
WB 1.3 WOULD work with their Kwikstart 1.2 ROM setup.
Would anyone care to offer a second opinion and/or words of
warning regarding Kwikstart 1.2 and WB 1.3 compatibility.
P.S. Michigan Software said that they are planning on producing a
Kwikstart 1.3, and providing an upgrade ($30 for the ROM set)
to 1.3 for Kwikstart 1.2 owners.
|
| Re: .6
Michigan Software is right. Commodore felt pretty strongly that
the Amiga 2000 had to be able to claim to support hard disk boot.
So, they resolved to get this support into the operating system
as soon as possible.
They were then faced with a dilemma: they have sold 400,000 Amigas
with 1.2 in ROM. Asking all those people to upgrade roms for a
somewhat trivial change did not seem like a good idea. So, they
decided to make the only change between 1.2 and 1.3 the autoboot
feature. All other Kickstart code, even the known bugs for which
Commodore has fixes, was left unchanged for the sake of compatibility
with 1.2. In fact, the original designation of Kickstart 1.3 was
1.2.1 because it is such a trivial change.
Workbench 1.3 does not depend on any special features of Kickstart 1.3.
Commodore does not expect any Amiga 2000 or 500 owners to upgrade
their Kickstart roms. This has been stated in the developer's newsletter
and usenet.
So your friend doesn't loose anything by being "locked" into 1.2
for now.
Commodore is pretty far along with the 1.4 release of the operating system.
This release makes major changes to the ROMs adding a host of new features
(in fact, the 256K roms will be overfull--Workbench may be moved to a
disk library). Everyone will be expected to update their ROMs at that time.
|
| Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga,comp.sys.amiga.tech
Path: decwrl!pyramid!cbmvax!daveb
Subject: Re: V1.3 Printer Drivers
Posted: 2 Apr 88 22:59:00 GMT
Organization: Commodore Technology, West Chester, PA
Xref: decwrl comp.sys.amiga:18375 comp.sys.amiga.tech:233
In article <28116@linus.UUCP> sdl@linus.UUCP (Steven D. Litvintchouk) writes:
>
>For those of us who have the gamma versions from ProWrite2.0 or
>Shakespeare, would it be possible for someone to post docs on the new
>capabilities of the 1.3 drivers? ProWrite 2.0 came with a new version
>of Preferences that shows a whole bunch of new options for printing,
>but unfortunately the ProWrite manual didn't document all of them.
>
V1.3 Preferences (Preliminary)
----------------
The new Preferences program has a 2nd printer graphic screen.
The gadgets and their descriptions are as follows:
Gadget Description
------ -----------
Density 1-7 - the user density is SPECIAL_DENSITY1 thru SPECIAL_DENSITY7
and it OVERRIDES whatever density the application program
has selected. You can use this to assure a certain
density. The lower the density the faster the print times
(on those printers with multiple densities).
Center Image turns on/off horizontal centering of the picture on the
paper. This options overrides the Left Offset value.
Scaling Fraction - normal scaling (default).
Integer - every dot on the screen is guarenteed to appear as an
even number of dots on the printer both in the x and
y dimension. ie. if your source picture is 320x200,
the printed picture width will be either 320, 640,
960, etc. dots wide and 200, 400, 600, etc. dots
high. THIS IS THE OPTION TO USE WHEN YOU ARE TRYING
TO PRINT A PICTURE THAT CONTAINS THIN VERTICAL AND
HORIZONTAL LINES (LIKE A GRID). The actual size of
the printed picture will be the size you asked for
scaled up/down to the nearest multipe of the width
and height of the picture. When you do this you
completely override the aspecting feature of the
printer device. ie. it is possible to get a
(slightly) distorted (non aspect ratio correct)
picture. THIS OPTION IS ALSO USEFULL IF YOU ARE
PRINTING OUT BIT-IMAGE TEXT (LIKE IN NOTEPAD) AS
THE FONTS WONT BE DISTORTED DUE TO FRACTIONAL SCALING.
Color Correction - this option selectively tries to match all shades of
either red (R), green (G), or blue (B) from the screen
to the printer. Initially the printer device can
print all the 4096 colors of the Amiga on a printer.
However, as color correction is applied the total
number of printed colors is reduced to a low of 3172.
To see the effect of this option, print out a picture
with solid red, green, and blue shades twice, once
with this option on, and once with it off. Now compare
the two pictures with the screen display; the results
should be obvious.
LeftOffset - offsets the printed picture horizontally in increments
of tenths of an inch. The 'Center Image' option (above)
disables this option.
Dithering Ordered - color intensities on the printer are formed using
an 'ordered' dither method. This is the default.
HalfTone - color intensities on the printer are formed
using a 'halftone' dither method. This
technique is similar to the one used in
newspapers and comic books and works best on
high density printers (> 150 dots/inch).
F/S - color intensities on the printer are formed using the
'Floyd-Steinberg' error distribution method. This
option (currently) slows down the printing by a factor
of two as it has to analyse each pixel before printing.
Note that this option automatically turns off
smoothing as they can not be used in conjunction
with each other.
MaxWidth - limits the width of the printed picture in tenths / inch.
MaxHeight - limits the height of the printed picture in tenths / inch.
<-Limits-> - this gadget determines how the above 'limits' are to be
interpreted as follow:
IGNORE - the limits are to be IGNORED. The printed picture's
size is bounded by the old standbye of:
width =
(right margin - left margin + 1) / chars per inch.
height =
lines per page / lines per inch.
This option is here to remain compatible with
pre V1.3 software and is the default.
BOUNDED - the printed picture's size is BOUNDED by
MaxWidth and MaxHeight. ie. if you want the
printed picture to be no bigger than 4 x 5
(but it could be smaller), set MaxWidth to 40,
MaxHeight to 50, and select BOUNDED. This option
is here so that you don't have to change the
text settings (margins, lines per page, etc.)
everytime you do a graphic print.
ABSOLUTE - MaxWidth and MaxHeight are taken to be ABSOLUTE
values. The printed picture's size is no
longer bounded rather it will absolutely be
the size specified here. ie. If you want the
printed picture to be exactly 4.0 x 5.0 inches;
set MaxWidth to 40, MaxWidth to 50, and select
ABSOLUTE. When you do this you completely
override the aspecting feature of the printer
device. ie. it is possible to get a (very)
distorted (non aspect ratio correct) picture.
Setting one (but not both) of the dimensions to
zero aspect ratio corrects that dimension. ie.
If you set MaxWidth to 40 and MaxHeight to 0,
then the printed picture will be 4.0 inches wide
and as tall as it needs to be in order to be
aspect ratio correct. If both of the dimensions
are zero then the printed picture will be the
printer's maximum dots wide and as tall as it
needs to be in order to be aspect ratio correct.
PIXELS - MaxWidth and MaxHeight are taken to be absolute
values in printer PIXELS and not tenths of an inch!
The same rules for 'ABSOLUTE' (MaxWidth = 0 and
MaxHeight = 0) apply here.
MULTIPLY - MaxWidth and MaxHeight are used to MULTIPLY the
source picture's width and height. ie. If you
specified a MaxWidth of 2 and a MaxHeight of 4,
the printed picture would be 2x the source picture's
width pixels wide and 4x the source picture's
height pixels high. Thus if the source picture
were 320 x 200, the printed picture would be
640 (320 x 2) pixels wide and 800 (200 x 4) pixels
high. The same rules for 'ABSOLUTE' (MaxWidth = 0
and MaxHeight = 0) apply here. Ths same benefits
that apply to INTEGER scaling are valid here.
Smoothing - attempts to smooth diagonal lines. This option (currently)
slows down the printing by a factor of two as it has to
analyze each pixel (and its closest neighbours) before
printing. This option is best suited for use with programs
that do graphic dumps of text (like ProWrite, PageSetter,
CityDesk, Publisher 1000, NotePad, etc.).
Note that this option automatically turns off
Floyd-Steinberg dithering (and selects Ordered dithering)
as they can not be used in conjunction with each other.
Regards, David Berezowski
|