UTILS\PKICK.DOC ·
DOC ·
13.7 KB ·
1989-02-10 ·
from PCPlus_Issue-31_Apr-1989
PKICK - Pop-up Printer Controller Sep 1988
[Copyright (c) 1988 by Michael J.R. Newman, all rights reserved.]
PKICK (pronounced peekick) allows you to set many of the
commonly-used features of your Epson- and/or IBM- compatible
printer, without leaving the program you are currently using.
PKICK can work with printers which are basically Epson-
compatible, or IBM-compatible, or able to switch between the two.
It can also be used as a normal program, by running it from the
DOS prompt, using it to set up the printer, and then exiting
without leaving itself in memory.
Whilst I retain copyright (1988) to the PKICK.COM and PKINST.EXE
programs, and to this documentation, feel free to give copies to
your friends provided the copies are complete and unmodified, and
include the copyright notices. This magnanimous gesture is
unusual for me, and comes from years of frustration with printer
installations. Besides, it is not exactly a life's work!
Starting PKICK
To use it as a one-off and not install it in memory permanently,
just type the command
PKICK [Enter]
To install it permanently in memory, for activation via the Hot
Key, type the command
PKICK R [Enter]
When installed permanently, PKICK takes up slightly less than
4,500 bytes of memory.
Invoking PKICK when Installed in Memory
Press the "Hot Key". This means hold down Alt and press PrtSc
(unless the hot key has been changed via the installation program
described below). PKICK will pop its menu onto the screen.
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PKICK - Pop-Up Printer Controller Page 1 of 5
Using PKICK
Having got the PKICK menu panel on the screen, 1--------
you can use it as follows. |>Epson |
| IBM |
Notice that at the top of the menu there are |>Pica |
two entries named "Epson" and "IBM". Just to | eLite |
the left of one of these is an arrow head. | Cond |
This indicates which kind of printer PKICK |>6lpi |
thinks you have got. You can change between | 8lpi |
the two by pressing "E" or "I" (without the | 9lpi |
quotes). |>11" |
| 12" |
The remainder of the panel consists of a word | NLQ |
on each line, one of which is currently | Reset |
highlighted. You can move the highlight by | Other |
using the up and down arrows, Home and End ---------
located on the numeric keypad.
To set or reset (turn on or off) one of the functions, move the
highlight bar to that line and press Enter. PKICK will send the
appropriate codes to the printer and change the appropriate arrow
heads. Alternatively you can type the Capital letter (normally
the first letter) of the function you want to turn on or off.
Against some of the items there will be an arrow head. This
means that PKICK thinks the printer is currently in that "mode".
There some mutually exclusive sets of functions here, such that
the printer cannot be printing Pica (10 characters per inch) and
Elite (12 characters per inch) at the same time, so if you set
Pica, Elite gets reset. Similarly this applies to the 6, 8 and
9 lpi (lines per inch) and the 11" / 12" (page length) functions.
Reset resets the printer and clears all the little arrow heads.
The last item on PKICK's menu panel 1--------
is "Other". This pops out a |>Epson |
further panel into which you can | IBM |
type a series of decimal numbers |>Pica |
separated by spaces, each | eLite |
representing an Ascii character | Cond |
code. Having typed them in press |>6lpi |
Enter to send them to the printer, | 8lpi |
or Esc to cancel them. If you | 9lpi |
pressed Return after the codes, the |>11" |
next time you call up "Other", the | 12" |
same codes will be there for re-use | NLQ |
or editing. But if the first thing -----------------------
you type is a digit or a space, the |27 112 0 |
previous codes will be cleared. -----------------------
You can use the left and right
arrows, Home, End, Del and
Backspace when editing values.
There are two other functions you can use: Ctrl-L (hold down
Ctrl and press L) sends a "newline" code to the printer, and
Ctrl-P causes a page throw.
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PKICK - Pop-Up Printer Controller Page 2 of 5
In the top left hand corner of the menu panel there is a single
digit. This represents the current printer number, so "1" means
"LPT1", "2" means "LPT2" and "3" means "LPT3". You can switch to
a different printer by pressing the left or right cursor arrows.
PKICK maintains the status of each printer separately, so it will
remember, for example, that LPT1 is an Epson using Pica font
while LPT2 is an IBM currently in Condensed mode.
If the printer is not Ready or not 1--------
switched on when you try to send some |>Epson |
codes, either via "Other" or any of the | IBM |
built-in functions, a blinking message |>Pica |
"Printer Not Ready" will appear at the | eLite |
bottom of the panel. If you then make | Cond |
the printer Ready the message will |>6lpi |
disappear and the codes will be sent to | 8lpi |
it. Alternatively if you press Esc to | 9lpi |
cancel the function, the message will |>11" |
disappear and the codes will not be | 12" |
sent. | NLQ |
| Reset |
| Other |
Printer Not Ready
When you have finished changing the printer settings using PKICK,
pressing Esc will make it disappear if resident, or finish if run
as a one-off. If resident, pressing the "Hot Key" will make
PKICK pop-up again.
Getting rid of PKICK
When PKICK is made resident, you can only get rid of it by doing
a reboot of the computer, unless you have the Public Domain
utilities MARK and RELEASE.
When PKICK is run as a one-off, pressing Esc terminates it
completely.
Coexistence with Sidekick (and other resident programs)
Borland's Sidekick likes to be the last resident program, and
indeed it sometimes does some unfriendly things to programs such
as PKICK if they are installed after it. So if you want to
install PKICK as part of your AUTOEXEC.BAT process, place it
before Sidekick. The same caution may apply to some other
resident programs, though I have not had problems with any
except Sidekick. This does not affect use of PKICK as a one-off
(without the "R" on its command line.
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PKICK - Pop-Up Printer Controller Page 3 of 5
Installation
There is an installation program called PKINST, which will allow
you to configure PKICK in certain ways.
You can change the "Hot Key" combination, make PKICK use a
different printer port (LPT1, LPT2, etc) when it starts up, have
it send a once-off string of codes to the printer when PKICK is
first permanently installed into memory, change the default
settings for the functions (Epson/IBM, Pica/Elite/Condensed,
etc), and change the codes actually sent to the printer.
To run PKINST first make sure that PKICK.COM is in the current
directory. To check this, type the command DIR PKICK.COM and
press Enter; the response will say "File not found" if it's not
there. If it is there, the response will show its name, file
size, date etc, and you can invoke PKINST by just typing the
command
PKINST
PKINST will start up and display a form on the screen. All the
changeable values are shown in bright white except the one which
is highlighted in reverse video (black on white) which is the
"current" field.
You can move the highlight around from field to field by using
the up, and down cursor arrows, Home, End, Tab and RTab (shifted
Tab).
To change a value move the highlight to it and press Enter. The
little (normal) cursor will appear in the field and you can
change it. For all the fields except the Hot Key field, you type
a new value or edit the old one and then press Enter again.
While editing a field you can use the left and right arrows,
Home, End, and Backspace but if the first thing you type is a
character the rest of the field will be cleared. After the first
keystroke the characters you enter will overtype the old ones.
Hot Key field: if you press Y while the highlight is on this
field ("Current Hot Key is ... change? N") you will be prompted
to press the actual hot key combination you want. You can use
any combination of Shift, Ctrl and Alt with ONE character key
(but don't use Ctrl-Alt-Del!). The prompt will disappear when
you have let go all the keys, and the line describing the key
will change to reflect the new one. PKINST will not accept
either only character keys or only shift keys, and will not
accept any combination which includes a "Lock" key (Caps, Num or
Scroll Lock); in this case it will beep and remain on the
"change? N" field.
Codes to send when being made resident: You can enter up to 16
Ascii codes as numbers between 0 and 255 separated by spaces.
The Ascii characters represented by the numbers will be sent to
the printer once only, when PKICK is run with the R command
parameter.
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PKICK - Pop-Up Printer Controller Page 4 of 5
Printer: This is a single digit, from 0 to 3, denoting the
initial printer port (0 = LPT1, etc). PKICK can currently only
deal with parallel printers attached to ports LPT1, LPT2 and
LPT3.
Codes: This table of values has one line per PKICK function, and
each line has five columns.
The first column (headed "dflt" with a little arrow below)
denotes the initial settings to be assumed by PKICK when it first
appears. A 0 means off and a 1 means on.
The remaining four columns are divided into two groups, headed
"Epson" and "IBM", since the two kinds of printer use different
command codes for some functions. In fact you could set up
either of these groups to send a completely different set of
codes, for some entirely different kind of printer.
In these four columns you are limited to providing up to only
five codes. Entry and editing of them is exactly the same as for
"Codes to send when being made resident" above.
When you have made all the changes you want, press Esc. You will
be asked if you want to save the changes (answer Y) or discard
them (answer N). If you answer Y to this question the changes
you made will be written into the PKICK.COM file, so if it is on
a diskette make sure the write-protect tab is missing. The
changes just made will only take effect next time PKICK is
loaded.
Limitations
PKICK (and PKINST) is designed to write directly to the screen
buffer, so it will only work on very IBM-compatible computers
whose screen buffer starts at address B000 (monochrome) or B800
(colour). It does detect whether it is in mono or colour when it
is first loaded, and changes its choice of screen attributes
accordingly. PKICK will refuse to pop up while the screen is in
any graphics mode.
Mike Newman,
September 1988
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