Page 2 of 7

Re: Oriclopedia: A series of videos on all things Oric

Posted: Sun Oct 06, 2019 4:13 pm
by Dbug
sam wrote: Sun Oct 06, 2019 1:56 pm I can see this isn't a dot-printer at all, but rather a "vector" printer.
How do you convert the screen bitmap into the proper vectorial form?
Well, the printer is fully addressable in X/Y coordinates with a 0.2mm accuracy, so it's just a matter of drawing horizontal lines in the right color, moving back and down a little bit, then draw another horizontal line.

The problem is mostly that with all the back and forth, you end up having some inaccuracies and things don't always align properly... and it eats up a crapton of ink!
Notice: it is bad they choose R/G/B pens because you can't do subtractive color addition with them. Did you succeed in producing correct yellow color with it? ( :idea: by introducing a little offset between the R and G pass so they each print over white paper for instance).
Nope, can't do yellow, or brown, or anything really, these colors were chosen to match the type of ball point pen you would normally find, it was not really designed to make high color pictures.

But I guess what you did with your picture conversion program could indeed probably be done to convert pictures in some "pointiliste" style, would be interesting to try :)

Re: Oriclopedia: A series of videos on all things Oric

Posted: Sun Oct 06, 2019 5:16 pm
by sam
Dbug wrote: Sun Oct 06, 2019 4:13 pm But I guess what you did with your picture conversion program could indeed probably be done to convert pictures in some "pointiliste" style, would be interesting to try :)
Actually, I wrote horizontally, but internally thought vertically(!). The idea being something like the -f2 (RVB) mode of PictConv: draw 1 line of with red/black pens, then go down a bit, draw green/black line, then down a little bit drag blue/black line. For all those line a pixel should be a certain distance that is 3 times the vertical space between lines (this makes 3:1 pixels for sublines). This imply that 3 consecutive sub-line makes a real 8 color line.

Re: Oriclopedia: A series of videos on all things Oric

Posted: Sun Oct 06, 2019 7:42 pm
by mikeb
Dbug wrote: Sun Oct 06, 2019 4:13 pm Well, the printer is fully addressable in X/Y coordinates with a 0.2mm accuracy, so it's just a matter of drawing horizontal lines in the right color, moving back and down a little bit, then draw another horizontal line.
I don't recall if it was an Oric Owner or other type-in, but I recall trying a screen dump (for the MCP40) which did work, but your technique described above is what was used, and you missed out the bit about having to wait FOREVER for the finished picture, and the noise. Oh the noise. Clatter clatter clatter.

As to getting more colours, you won't get useful results from trying to write red ink over green ink to get yellow -- the pens are the additive primaries, which works for light emission (screens), so "fifty shades of mud" if you try this.

The colours for ink-over-ink, the subtractive primaries, are the Village People colours ...

# You need to print it with Y M C K ...

Yellow, Magenta, Cyan and Key(Black)

I don't know if you can even get these tiny ballpoints with other colours ...

You may get some interesting colours from lining red *next to* green, but not yellow.

Re: Oriclopedia: A series of videos on all things Oric

Posted: Sun Oct 06, 2019 8:25 pm
by Dbug
Maybe opening and refilling the pens with Cyan, Magenta and Yellow ink would work?
I've never actually tried to open and refill these pens :)

Re: Oriclopedia: A series of videos on all things Oric

Posted: Sun Oct 06, 2019 10:24 pm
by Steve M
There are adverts for this type of plotter from a company called Micro Computer Peripherals. I assume this is where the MCP comes from as it is basically a badged plotter from an existing design.

The plotter allows text to be written sideways so you can get an 80 column output, although you have to stick 3 or 4 strips to make a page.
This was how one of the earliest fanzines was produced. With the pages then photocopied.

There's a HIRES screen dump in OUM 78.
A cassette inlay prog for MCP40 is in OUM 64

Re: Oriclopedia: A series of videos on all things Oric

Posted: Mon Oct 07, 2019 4:33 pm
by mikeb
Steve M wrote: Sun Oct 06, 2019 10:24 pm as it is basically a badged plotter from an existing design.
The mechanism is made by ALPS, and the existing design you mention may well be a SHARP branded design, e.g. Sharp MZ1P16 / MZ800 (although it was also rebadged for Casio, Canon, Atari, Commodore ....) and Tandy/Radio Shack had a CGP-something printer that was the same thing again.

It got about a bit. Beats the heck out of sozzled tinfoil "printouts" ...

Ah, here :-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_1020

https://patents.google.com/patent/US4488159

Re: Oriclopedia: A series of videos on all things Oric

Posted: Mon Oct 07, 2019 7:26 pm
by Dbug
Well, it's exactly what the video starts by, a list of many of the machines using the same (or slight variant) of the same mechanism and using the same pens:

Code: Select all

Astron MCP-40 
Atari 1020 
Brother MCP-80 
Canon X-710 
Casio FP-100, FA-10, FA-11
Commodore 1520 
Gould DS 1604
Grason Stadler GSI 27
Heinemann/Interacoustics AT22, HMT 23, SAT 10, SAT 20
Hohmoth Combi 2000
Hörniß & Zeisberg IMP 88 / 89
Loewe PBT 03
Mitutoyo Digimatic Miniprozessor DP-2, DP-3DX
Nec PC-6022
Oric MCP 40
Panasonic "PenWriter" AK-P400C
Rhino 200
RK-P400C
SAM 200
Sharp CE-150, CE-1600P, CE-161P, CE-515P, CE-516P, MZ-1P01, MZ-1P16, MZ-700, MZ-731 and PC-2500
Silver Reed / Shiruba EB50 
Sony PRN-C41
Tandy Marco Plotter / Radio Shack PC-2, CGP-115
Texas Instruments HX-1000

Re: Oriclopedia: A series of videos on all things Oric

Posted: Tue Oct 08, 2019 7:42 pm
by ibisum
Desktop plotters were a thing in the 80's. I dunno what they're like now ..

Re: Oriclopedia: A series of videos on all things Oric

Posted: Tue Oct 15, 2019 11:51 pm
by Steve M
Well they seem to use them a bit in medical equipment and one or two other applications but they are usually bigger, more serious devices.
Someone linked to one of the medical plotters as a source for paper for the MCP40, but I couldn't find the right page.

Re: Oriclopedia: A series of videos on all things Oric

Posted: Sat Oct 19, 2019 3:21 pm
by Dbug
Baz asked if I could make a video about IJK software, there it is:

Re: Oriclopedia: A series of videos on all things Oric

Posted: Sun Oct 20, 2019 7:00 am
by coco.oric
A good one. Thanks dbug for these.
I should play again on my oric with Probe 3.

Re: Oriclopedia: A series of videos on all things Oric

Posted: Sun Oct 20, 2019 9:24 pm
by Pengwin
Loving the video's DBug, great to see these.

Re: Oriclopedia: A series of videos on all things Oric

Posted: Mon Oct 21, 2019 7:56 pm
by Dbug
Glad you like them, I'm trying to blend the topics (hardware, software, ...) and the country of focus (England, France, ...) to try to give some variety.
I'm thinking in covering the following:
- Magazines and books
- Floppy drive systems (including modern SD card variants)
- Cables and video
- Joysticks
and obviously interleave that with some other publishers (Ere Informatique, PSS, Severn Software, ...)

Re: Oriclopedia: A series of videos on all things Oric

Posted: Sat Oct 26, 2019 9:21 pm
by Dbug
New video for this week-end, about cables, power supplies, difference between antenna and SCART output, and at the end me spending 25 minutes playing Defence-Force on two different TV screens:

Re: Oriclopedia: A series of videos on all things Oric

Posted: Sun Nov 03, 2019 8:24 pm
by Dbug
This week's video is about ERE Informatique, and has some actual gameplay shown in the second half after all the blabla!