Untitled - TRS-80 Color Computer Archive

The Word on Print Master
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by Bobby Ballard
ease of use documentation
performance error handling
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OVERALL RATING 3.75
Application Software
Print Master is manufactured by Dataman In­
ternational, 420 Fergueson Ave. North, Hamil­
ton. Ont., L8L 4Y9, Canada, 41 6-529-1 319. The
product requires 32K and a mouse or joystick. It
sellsfor $29.95 on cassette or disk plus $2.50for
shipping. The Canadian price is $39.95.
F irst there came Graphic Master and
Text Master. Now comes Print Master.
This entry packs the same power of the other
Master series programs, offering a versatile
and adaptable printer driver that will work
with any printer on the market.
Print Master was written by Scott Nudds
and is actually two programs incorporated in
one package. The first part, Print Master.
handles the basics of loading, moving, and
printing graphics. The second part. called
the Customizer. allows you to set up Print
Master for any printer. It customizes Print
Master to match your brand of printer and
lets you make other changes in the way the
utility prints your files.
I was im pressed with the professional
packaging that Dataman provides with Print
Master. It comes with a small three-ring vinyl
binder that has an inside pocket for the disk.
The software is equally impressive. By
"pointing and clicking" with a joystick or
mouse. you move through the program
quickly and effiCiently. All features are menu
driven and lightning fast. Keyboard entry in
Print Master is kept to a minimum.
On startup. the program displays a colorful
title screen. It also makes good use of the
CoCo's sound capabilities. There are four
menus: Main Menu. File lIO . Image Dump,
and Dump-a-Screen. Each of these is piC­
tured and explained in the manual. and
some are self-explanatory.
Problems
Despite what seems to be a well-organized
package. Prin t Master has some problems.
26 HOT CoCo February 1986
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There are times when it becomes confUSing to
use. For example, in Main Menu. the first se­
lection is "dump a picture." However. when
you click this selection you get the Image
Dump menu. This kind of inconSistency
should be cleared up with more careful titling
of menus and instructions that mean something
to the user. The Image Dump menu
might better be termed the the Dump Options
menu. You don't really dump an image from
it, you just set the options for the dump.
The manual is not much help. It shows the
Image Dump screen. but the text beside it
calls it the Dump Menu. The explanation in
this section states "The Image Dump menu
is available from both the Main Menu and the
File lIO menu. If the listed parameters are
correct you may click on the menu title (Im­
age Dump) and proceed to the next level."
There is no indication in the manual what
the next level is or why you might want to
proceed there. What the authors are trying
to say is that when you are in the Image
Dump menu, you can take a shortcut to the
Dump-a-Screen menu by positioning the cur­
sor directly on the words "Image Dump" and
pressing the button. It is important to read
the manual thoroughly before getting
started. Although operation is simple, you
will find the options and features confusing
without doing so.
Screens are sent to the printer from the
Dump-a-Screen menu. In this section you are
given many options on how much of the
screen you want printed. For example. you
might dump a working screen. a stored
screen. or part of a screen: view the working
screen: select PMODE; choose text size; go
back to the File lIO menu; or return to the
Image Dump menu. If you have a 64K CoCo.
you can also save and retrieve screens from
high memory or print several screens from
high memory together. Features in Print
Master that don' t require 64K inc I ude 90-
degree rotation of pictures, the option to cus­
tomize text titles for pictures. expandable
height for handling CoCo Max files (a graph­
ics program from Colorware Inc.), setting of
pixel size in both height and Width. and the
modulus mode. The last option permits
shading and changing patterns for achieving
different gray scales.
The Customizer
Print Master comes with a list of several
prin ters in its disk directory. If yours is listed
there. you will not have to customize Print
Master to work with your printer. If. however.
you own a printer the program does not list,
you'll have to use the Customizer to set up a
driver. The printers listed in the program 's
directory include the CGP-1 15, CGP-220,
DMP- I05. DMP- l 10, DMP-200 from Tandy:
Star Micronics' Gemini; and the Apple Image
Writer among others.
The Customizer has features that let you
do the fo llowing: change the baud rate. set
the number of wires (pins) in the print head.
remap the print head. add bytes to the out­
put. set bits to remain on during output. re­
set the graphics mode, define a color set.
define tab strings. define custom strings, iso­
late and replace bad output. and test or save
your custom fi le. Although the manual
touches upon each of these features. it could
explain them better.
The customize feature can also be used by
both 32 and 64K CoCo owners to design cus­
tom strings for producing various effects.
You need a thorough working knowledge or
the printer in question and a little patience
to get through these features. The Custom­
izer makes Print Master the most versatile
driver on the market. It works on some of the
most difficult printers to drive, including the
Okidata 92/93 and color printers such as the
Tandy CGP- I I5.
Although it is not easy to set up a custom
file in Print Master, it is difficult to endow a
program with powerful features and also
make it easy to use. One point in the pro­
gram's favor is that Dataman is helpful and
courteous when you have questions or prob­
lems. I was often able to reach the author of
the program directly by telephone. I've fo und
few companies that offer Dataman's high
level of service after a sale. They win my At­
las Award for the best customer support I've
come across.
The Last Word
I have mixed feelings about Print Master.
With a few improvements in documentation
and menus, it would be easy to give this pack­
age a very high overall rating. But because of
the confusion of the documentation and the
lack of consistency in the menu titles. I'll re­
serve that rating for later versions. Despite the
program's problems, however. I have never
seen a more powerful or versatile printer
driver for the Color Computer. If you have sev­
eral printers or one to which it is difficult to
dump graphics, this may be the solution. You
might also consider that if you buy new print­
ers. owning Print Master means that you
won't have to write your own driver or wait
for one to be developed. And given the level of
customer support from Dataman. you are
likely to get this program working whatever
the printer or conditions .•