Print42 - thermal printer software for Free42

[jpcuzzourt]

(09-16-2018 02:28 AM)tcab Wrote:  Actually I've had quite a few people suggest integrating Print42 with the HP red eye protocol, allowing a variety of real HP calculators (and DM42) to print to a modern thermal printer.

As long as the red eye receiving solution can create a unicode text file or a series of images, Print42 would be able to pick those up and print. Print42 would not even need to be changed in any way. I can think of a couple of specific design possibilities:

• Create a box of hardware containing: infra red receiver, Arduino etc, which generates files on a PC/Mac. Print42 running on the PC/Mac would detect changes to those files and print.
• Create a box of hardware containing: infra red receiver, Arduino etc, and Raspberry Pi running Print42 (under linux). Simply plug the thermal printer USB into the box and point your calculator!
  

The latter solution would certainly be an exciting box! I'm not sure how many people would be interested in this sort of project. I can offer a free license of Free42 Print42 for anyone demonstrating that they are building infra red integrations for Print42, as long as they share their solution. I could possibly provide deeper integration of Print42 with any such solution, to avoid intermediary files. Long term, I would even consider more relaxed licensing for all such linux/raspberry pi deployments.

-Andy

Hi Andy,
As I discussed with you by PM earlier, I'm considering building a Redeye IR enabled portable thermal printer, and have finally gotten a key piece of hardware, the printer itself. It is a $16 delivered from China unit with USB and TTL serial interfaces. (Goojrt model QR204) I got it tonight, and was able to find a nice driver which compiles easily under linux and works well. I've only tested it on my laptop so far, but I expect it to work well with a raspberry pi 0. If you make a raspi version of Print42* available, I'd be happy to test it in my spare time. As time allows, I also plan to work on a Redeye interface for the Raspi, i.e. skipping the arduino-in-the-middle.
Anyway, I just wanted to share with you that I had a printer and suitable raspi driver now.

*Edit - I earlier typed "Free42" - of course I meant "Print42"
(also later corrected printer model number from M204 to QR204)