Impression Publisher and Network Printing Instructions
Lindsay Thachuk (2552) 2 posts |
Raspberry PI B+, Impression Publisher and Network Printing I have worked with and owned Acorn computers since 1981 and still use my StrongARM RiscPC on a regular basis for doing my company invoices with Impression Publisher 4.11. One of my PC suppliers had a special price on the latest Raspberry PI B+ and I just had to have one when I saw I could get the RiscOS operating system on it. I even picked up a convenient ‘case’ for it off of Ebay for less than $10. Even though my RiscPC has operated flawlessly since 1993 along side many failed Microsoft PC’s, I thought I would try to create a backup Risc machine in case the old one failed. Thanks to the forums on the PI and RiscOS, I eventually got Impression Publisher working. I should point out that I did all this using my netword storage device, a PC, and a flash drive to move everything across from the RiscPC. I then discoverd that the PI device had automatically found the RiscPC on the network and I could have simply used ‘drag and drop’ from one maching to another. That is, if your Risc computer is on the same network as the PI, you do not need to zip the files etc., just drag them into the correct places outlined below. Some of the information here might be known by many of you but I hope it helps others. Here are the complete details I compiled to get it all working: 1) I went to http://buyit.spellings.net using a PC to get Aemulor for the Raspberry PI so the old Impression Publisher would work in the new RiscOS environment. A demo version is available for test purposes but I bought the software which was available for immediate download. I used a flash drive to move the Zip file into the PI device. The single module was then dragged into the: SDFS::RISCOSpi.$.!Boot.Choices.Boot.Predesk directory. 2) To copy the files off the RiscPC, they must be put into a Zip file before transferring them to another medium. I did not have a copy of SparkFS as suggested by many people so I used a program called ZipEE from John Pettigrew (http://www.pettigrew.org.uk/john/riscos/zipee.html) to create my zip files. You need the following set of files in separate zip files: 3) I used FTPc to upload the zip files to my network drive for temporary storage 4) I then used my PC and flash drive to copy the files on to the flash drive 5) The PI readily read the flash drive and I moved the four files into a new Temp folder in the PI unit. 6) The PI device comes with SparkFS installed so it was easy to double click each zipped file and move the contents to the appropriate locations. The Impression folder was put in a new directory called SDFS::RISCOSpi.$.Apps2 7) I restarted the PI device and Aemulor started as expected and the Impession program opened from the Apps2 directory. This took me a lot of time to figure out but hopefully these instructions help you to do it with no problems. Network Printing: With some confidence now, I decided to try and connect my new Lexmark Laser Printer to the PI device. As RiscOS drivers for all the new printers are not readily available, I have used the old Postscript drivers from 1993 to successfully print to those printers that come with Postscript built in. I was able to pick up my new Lexmark MS 310d for less than $175.00. I have found any Postscript capable printer appears to work. 1) For network printing using the printers IP address, you can use a free program called RemotePrinterFS available from: 2) The RPFS directory from the ZIP file is put into the $.!Boot.Choices.Boot.Predesk directory 3) The Apps folder on the task bar gives you access to the !Printers program. RemotePrinterFS#proto=LPD;address=192.168.0.12;queue=XXXXXX;sendfirst=datafile: XXXXXX – the queue name can be found by looking at the port settings of the same printer connected on a PC machine. The instructions from Stefan Bellon also assist with the possible settings. |
Lindsay Thachuk (2552) 2 posts |
For your convenience, I have posted a PDF copy of this article at Here |
Steve Pampling (1551) 7960 posts |
InfoZip works as a frontend for the command line utils wrapped up in ZipEE but has considerably newer versions of Zip and Unzip. 2012 vs. 1997 Dragging a zip to the InfoZip iconbar icon opens a filer style window to allow drag and drop operations on the zip file. You might find this more convenient. |
Chris Evans (457) 1614 posts |
Is there is an update for RPFS? |