LJVGA: A VGA to HP Laserjet Print Screen Utility Version 1.30 Copyright (c) 1992 Ares Technologies. All Rights Reserved. VGA is a trademark of International Business Machines Corporation. Hewlett-Packard and HP are registered trademarks of Hewlett- Packard Corporation. LJVGA: A VGA to HP Laserjet Print Screen Utility LJVGA is Terminate-and-Stay-Resident (TSR) program that allows you to print any VGA or Super VGA screen to an HP Laserjet or compatible printer. With a memory overhead of only 6k, you can print anything you can display on your VGA card - graphics, text, even hi-res text and 256-color screens! LJVGA is simple to use. Just run the command LJVGA, and you're ready to print anything! Hitting the Print Screen key (PrtSc) will activate LJVGA, causing it to print your current screen to the printer. Text screens print just like they look, with lines and other special characters you don't usually get. Graphics screens are automatically scaled to the resolution and page you choose. There are six options you can use with LJVGA. -? Print synopsis. This option prints a copyright notice and a short summary of options. No other action is taken if you use this option. -r# Set resolution. This allows you to set your printer's graphics resolution in dots-per-inch (DPI). Possible values for # are 75, 100, 150, and 300. LJVGA will automatically scale graphics to the resolution you choose. -l# Set printer port. This allows you to change the printer port LJVGA will print to. Possible values for # are 1 for LPT1, 2 for LPT2, or 3 for LPT3. -i Invert colors. This option will invert the colors for graphics screens so that white on the screen will print as black and vice-versa. Other colors are similarly reversed, printing a "negative" of the screen image. -f Suppress form-feed. Normally, LJVGA will eject the page from the printer once it has finished the screen. This option will cause LJVGA to leave the page in the printer until it is full. NOTE: You may run out of memory while printing high-res graphics with this switch. Make sure your printer has enough memory for the whole page! Also, LJVGA normally resets the printer options to produce the cleanest print possible. It cannot do this while using the -f option. If you experience problems printing with the -f option, manually reset your printer before printing. Copyright (c) 1992 Ares Technologies Page 2 -d Disable LJVGA. This option will cause LJVGA to return control to the previously loaded print-screen routines (usually in the system BIOS). This option does not remove LJVGA from memory. -e Enable LJVGA. Use this option to enable LJVGA if it has been previously disabled. LJVGA will regain control with the settings it had when it was disabled. -u Unload LJVGA. This option will disable LJVGA and remove it from memory. LJVGA will only unload if it is the last TSR loaded. LJVGA cannot be loaded twice. If you run LJVGA again, it will find the copy already in memory and update its configuration. So if you decide to change resolution, printer ports, or any other option, you don't need to reboot - just run LJVGA with the new parameters! LJVGA will reset all of its parameters to the defaults, so make sure you specify all of the options you need when reloading it. ADDITIONAL NOTES Printing graphics on a laser printer requires large amounts of memory. If you are planning on printing graphics screens at 300 DPI, you should have at least 1 megabyte of memory in your laser printer. 512k should be sufficient for printing text and graphics at lower resolutions. LJVGA is only guaranteed to work with VGA screen modes that are supported by video BIOS. Most SuperVGA cards have extended BIOS chips which support all of the vendor-defined modes and thus will work with LJVGA. However, some graphics packages such as PICEM by John Bridges can directly program VGA cards into modes not supported by BIOS. LJVGA is NOT guaranteed to work with these modes. For the future, we plan to enhance LJVGA to support VGA hardware directly. This will increase its speed and flexibilty, and will allow it to print these special modes. If you discover any unsupported modes, please let us know about them and we will consider them when the enhancements are made. Copyright (c) 1992 Ares Technologies Page 3 REPORTING BUGS If you discover what seems to be a bug in LJVGA, please let us know! If we verify a bug you discover, you will receive a free registered version of the fixed program! CURRENT KNOWN PROBLEMS Only prints in the portrait orientation. Has no image or printing controls. Is VERY slow printing graphics - about 2 minutes for a 320x200 screen at 300 dpi. Only supports video BIOS-supported modes. LJVGA RELEASE HISTORY v0.50 (910307) - Initial release. v1.00 (910326) - Added resolution option. Added printer port option. Added error detection for missing or off-line printers. Added the ability to detect and update a previously loaded copy. v1.10 (910622) - Added the disable/enable options. v1.20 (910730) - Added suppress form-feed option. v1.30 (920304) - Fixed a bug with command-line parsing under MS-DOS 4.0/5.0. Added invert option. Added unload option. Copyright (c) 1992 Ares Technologies Page 4 TECHNICAL SUPPORT If you have any questions or comments about LJVGA, contact: Mail: Ares Technologies 8617-302 Wood Lake Ct. Charlotte, NC 28210-5515 Phone: 704-556-7309 E-Mail: CIS 73237,1572 Ares Technologies is also available for custom programming projects. Please feel free to contact us if you would like to discuss your programming needs. Copyright (c) 1992 Ares Technologies Page 5 REGISTRATION If you find LJVGA useful and convenient, a registration of $10 or more would be appreciated. If you send $20 or more, you will receive a disk containing the current version of the software. You will also receive a disk with the next major version when it becomes available. For a fee of $50, you will receive a lifetime registration for LJVGA. This will entitle you to every major and minor version of LJVGA as they are released. These will be automatically sent to you free of additional charge. Site licenses are available for commercial and multiple user organizations. Please read the file REGISTER.TXT for more information. Please state the current version of the software you are using. Send check or money order to: Ares Technologies 8617-302 Wood Lake Ct. Charlotte, NC 28210-5515 You can also order LJVGA from the Public Software Library with your Visa, MasterCard, American Express, or Discover card at one of the following numbers. These numbers are for ordering only. For all other information concerning LJVGA, please contact Ares Technologies directly. Mail: PsL P.O. Box 35705 Houston, TX 77235-5705 Phone: 800-2424-PSL 713-524-6394 FAX: 713-524-6398 E-Mail: CIS 71355,470 Copyright (c) 1992 Ares Technologies Page 6 SOFTWARE LICENSE LJVGA VGA/HP Laserjet Print Screen Utility Copyright (c) 1992 Ares Technologies. All Rights Reserved. Notice: By using LJVGA, you agree to be bound by the terms of this license. If you do not agree with the conditions listed herein, you may not use LJVGA. If you have any questions regarding your software license, please contact Ares Technologies at the address listed elsewhere in this document. You may use, copy, and distribute LJVGA for noncommercial purposes only, provided the following conditions are met: No fees may be charged for use or distribution. The program and accompanying documentation must be distributed in unmodified form. Reverse compilation, reverse engineering, or any other form of code decomposition is expressly prohibited. Clubs, user groups, and shareware distributors may charge a nominal fee for expenses and handling only while distributing LJVGA. Operators of electronic bulletin board systems may charge only normal membership fees, and may not require additional fees for access to LJVGA. Distributors are encouraged to register with Ares Technologies. See the file SYSOP.TXT for additional information. Site and commercial licenses are available for LJVGA. Please read the file REGISTER.TXT, or contact Ares Technologies for more information. Ares Technologies hereby disclaims all warranties relating to this software, express or implied, including without limitation any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular application. Ares Technologies will not be liable for any damages, direct, consequential, or otherwise, suffered due to loss of data or any other reason, even if Ares Technologies has been advised of the possibly of such damage. In no event shall Ares Technologies' liability for any such damages exceed the price paid for the license to use the software, regardless of the form of the claim. The user of this software bears all risk as to the quality and performance of the software. Copyright (c) 1992 Ares Technologies Page 7