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I recently got a new Apple IIe Enhanced. Everything was working perfectly. For fun, I started using Appleworks to keep my daily journal. The computer came with copies of Appleworks disks that were set up with the printer the computer came with; an Epson LX-80. Everything worked fine when I went to print. Of course, that wasn't good enough for me, I had a newer copy of Applworks from 1986 (The original was from 1983 or 85), so I copied that onto the old disks, not thinking much about the printer. I could just set it up again, right?
WRONG!
Now when I print, the print doesn't go across the whole page and there are random carriage returns.
I tried every Epson option in Appleworks to see if it would work and none did. I tried setting a custom printer, which did allow the print to go across the whole page but I still had rtandom carriage returns. I really have no idea if I was correctly entering in the printer codes under the custom printer setup, so there's that.
I guess what I'm wondering, does anyone have any ideas of what to try? Is this newer version of Appleworks incompatible with my printer or interface card? The interface card is an "Orange Printer Interface" by Orange Micro. Not a Grappler or Grappler Plus, just a simple "Orange Printer Interface". I'm guessing it's some cheaper version they made back in the day.
I have a Floppy Emu on the way, so I'm going to try to run the older version of Appleworks that I originally had and see if it does work again. Unfortunately, right now, I don;t have the original disks for the version I worte over.
Anyway, I know I did some stupid stuff here. I'm a noob and wasn't thinking this all the way through before I acted.
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks.
I've attached an image of what the print looks like at the moment using one of the Epson presets in Appleworks.
my Appleworks Tutorial manual (1986) says to ESC back to the Main Menu, choose option 5, Other Activities, and press Return.
Then choose option 7, Specify information about your printer, press Return and choose Change printer specifications.
Try this as a starting point. Maybe when you loaded the newer version the new disks do not have the printer specs the old version had.
Good luck.
Thanks Lasermaster. The area for printer settings you mention is the spot I'm playing around in trying to get this to work. I've tried doing a custom printer and using the Epson presets with no luck. :-(
It's only been 33 years since I last used my AppleWorks :) So looking again in "my stash", the User Manual has far more information with the Open-Apple "O" command that brings up all the print options. (and there are a ton of them)
I used my Epson LX-810 printer with my AppleWorks and I seem to recall using the Epson FX or RX from the list of printers , although it is possible I set it up as a Custom Printer...sorry, I've slept since then, but if you don't figure it out I can and will boot up my AppleWorks disk(s) and see how mine was set.
Also check the dip switch settings on your Epson printer to see how it is currently configured for printing, then make sure you are using similar settings in the printer profile you've selected or setup as a Custom Printer.
After all that, I'd also check your settings for:
Platten width
Left & Right margin
Top & Bottom margin
Characters Per Inch
Lines Per Inch
I couldn't help myself and had to bring out my previously used AW Startup and Programs disk (mine is the 1986 version) to boot on my IIe I've had since 1983 or 84 and have had setup for use since 2017.
I went through the menus mentioned earlier. I'd suggest start by selecting the Epson FX-80 and see how your LX-80 behaves first. The FX will be a far better choice than the MX for your LX. Then if it needs tweaking (AND IF YOU HAVE ITS USER MANUAL or download from Epson's website for reference) add a new custom printer and name it "Epson LX-80" and define the items listed when defining a custom printer.
Have fun!
So, what you mentioned reminded me of something I ran into when I set up my printer as a custom printer. I was unsure of how to enter the custom printer codes. I do have the manual and I found the codes, but I was unclear of the form to use. I think I may have had spaces where there wasn;t supposed to be any, because the printer would actually print the codes I had entered into AppleWorks. So I guess I'll try playing around with typing the codes in different ways and see what works.
Did you get a chance to see if your printer was set up as custom? If it is, what do the codes look like for you? I ask because the manual gives a couple different methods for entering them and then the spacing is hard to determine because the way the manual is printed.
Anyway, it's so funny that I'm letting such a little thing bug me, but it is. I tend to go a littl OCD on this stuff. LOL
Kind of a side question, let's say I can't get this working, do you know if the modern Epson dot-matrix printers will work with a IIe? I'm just curious. I'd rather have a vintage printer, but Epson does make a parallel dot-matrix printer for a couple hundred bucks. I figure if it would work, it might be better than trying to find an older printer to work with it since it's such a craphoot wether those are in working condition or not.
Thanks a lot for your help!
Well, it took just about all weekend, but I decided to take one more look. I went ahead and used the FX settings as you had suggested. I had done this before, but it tunrs out the one thing I DIDN'T do was check the interface card settings under that paricular preset. Sure enough, Appleworks had a control code pre-populated. I took out that code, which was evidently screwing with my interface card and Boom! It started working!
Thanks again for your help. I probably wouldn;t have tried this again if it hadn;t been for you.
You ask good questions. When looking through my LX-810 printer ESC codes the same thought crossed my mind as to the actuall "literal" code entry, with or without spaces. I hadn't thought about that in decades, but my gut told me it probably doesn't matter. Myself, I'd try it with and without spaces to see which worked.
I had a few AW startup and Programs disks (5-1/4") and just grabbed the first two at the top of the stack of floppies in the disk caddy as they would have been the last ones I used. Was my LX setup as a custom printer? No, in fact, the Apple ImageWriter was the default and I never had one of those, but my mother did. But for practice I did define a custom printer profile for my LX-810 but didn't test it yet. I did however deduce that "Boldface" was the AW equivalent to the LX's "Double-Strike".
I recall first using Apple Writer II and wrote a lot of my software documentation with it, then later bought AW because it had spreadsheet and database apps, too. I believe the Apple Writer II documents were compatible with AppleWorks but I wouldn't swear to it without further exploration.
I mainly use my LX in draft mode so FP Basic program and Assembler listings print quickly. I noted last night (and documented) that the printer's dip switches were set to factory Defaults.
Lastly, yes, I believe the modern dot-matrix parallel Epson printers would work with the IIe and or IIgs, or earlier II's.
Please note, that your questions help ol' farts like me refresh old knowledge once known but long forgotten, so thanks for that.
Glad you finally got it working!
Yes, I was so happy to get this working. So this means my setup is 100% functional, which is what I was going for. I feel so lucky to have gotten a vintage printer that is complete and works very well. Some of those you see on eBay are so sad looking! LOL
Glad you liked my questions and got something out of helping me. This whole experience caused me to learn so much about printers and the way they work. Well, it least older printers, though I did learn some about more recent printer technology.
At first this whole thing was very frustrating, but now I'm kinda glad I wentr through all of it.
FWIW: I also use Virtual ][ on my High Sierra Mac and two of its benefits are:
1) Save to PDF when printing; and
2) Print to modern day printers.
This has come in very handy when I moved some years of Time is Money home accounting data (which normally cannot be exported), to a PDF file and then the text extracted so I could import it into MS Excel for further processing.
Great point! I am looking at getting Virtual ][ as well. I think it'll really help me out in a few areas, and a backup to printing is agreat idea!