Readme file for the hpxx drivers V 1.3

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

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   11.11.96. Initial release of the driver 

   25.08.97  Version 1.2. Resolved all but one of the 
                          known bugs, introduced a couple
			  of perfomance improvements. Complete
			  new color-transfer-function handling.
			  (see gamma).

  01.06.98   Version 1.3  Due to the most welcome contribution
                          of Martin Gerbershagen (ger@ulm.temic.de),
                          support for the hp670, hp690 and hp890
			  and hp1600 has been added. Martin has also
			  resolved all known bugs.

	     Problems  :  Dark colors are still pale.
	                  

The hp690 is supported through the hp670 device, the hp855, hp870 and the hp1100 through the hp850 device.

The driver implements the following switches:

   -dPapertype= 0  plain paper [default]
                1  bond paper
		2  special paper
		3  glossy film
		4  transparency film

		Note, currently the lookuptables are not suited
		for printing on special paper or transperencies.
		Please revert to the gamma functions in this case.

   -dQuality=  -1 draft     
                0 normal       [default]
                1 presentation 

   -dRetStatus= 0 C-RET off
                1 C-RET on [default]

   -dMasterGamma= 3.0 [default = 1.0]
    __Note__: To take advantage of the calibrated color-transfer
              functions, be sure not to have any Gamma-Statements
	      left! If you need to (i.e. overhead sheets), 
	      you still can use the gamma-functions, but they will 
	      override the built-in calibration. To use gamma in the 
	      traditional way, set MasterGamma to any value greater
	      1.0 and less 10.0. To adjust individual gamma-values,
	      you have to additionally set MasterGamma to a value
	      greater 1.0 and less 10.0
	      

Since the printer itself is slow, it may help to set the process-priority of the gs-process to regular or even less. On a 486/100MHZ this is still sufficient to maintain a continuos data-flow. Note to OS/2 users: Simply put the gs-window into the background, or minimize it. Also make sure, that print01.sys is invoked without the /irq switch (great speed improvement under warp4).

The printer default settings compensate for dot-gain by a calibrated color-transfer function. If this appears to be to light for your business-graphs, or for overhead-sheets, feel free to set -dMasterGamma=1.7.

Furthermore, you may tweak the gammavalues independently by setting -dGammaValC, -dGammaValM, -dGammaValY or -dGammaValK (if not set, the values default to MasterGamma). This will only work, when -dMasterGamma is set to a value greater than 1.0.

If you want to learn more about gamma, see: http://www.erdw.ethz.ch/~bonk/ftp/misc/gammafaq.pdf

http://www.erdw.ethz.ch/~bonk/ftp/misc/colorfaq.pdf

Note: Depending on how you transfered the files, you might need to remove some CR-codes used on intel-based machines: simply type: unzip -a hp850.zip to compile with gs5.x, add DEVICE_DEVS4=cdj850.dev cdj670.dev cdj890.dev cdj1600.dev to your makefile.

BTW, it is always a good idea to read make.txt found in the gs-distrib before attempting to recompile.....

Feel free to mail feedback or problems to

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