It is a bit of good fortune that Tasword Plus Two happens to run sufficiently well enough in NEXT mode to be able use the NEXT WiFi driver and Print server successfully including the character styles the driver and server support. However, unluckily it does not appear that Tasword's document save and load functions work in NEXT mode. The Plus Two version supports tape and microdrive. Since microdrives are not supportable in NEXT mode AFAIK, I had hoped I could use you the tape storage functions with the NEXT's TAP IN/OUT function, but this does not work. Even though I can successfully save the whole Tasword program using it's save customise program function to real tape, saving documents to real tape results in an loading back tape error. On finding this I tried using the PLUS 3 .DSK version of Tasword, which also successfully loads into NEXT mode. This version successfully saves and loads documents to the virtual .DSK, but I get no connection to the print server when using the print command. By default it has the print spooler off, so I suspect the problem is that it uses a different method to print?? The bottom line is that I can use Tasword Plus two to print successfully to my HP Envy WiFi printer including the driver's supported character styles and the printer server's fonts, but only with a document on the screen, as it does not seem possible to save a document when Tasword Plus Two is loaded into NEXT mode. With my very limited knowledge, I can't get any further and I suspect it would require some machine code re-write to make either of these programs work with full functionality with the driver/print server in NEXT mode.
Paul
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Hi Chris
Using the approach discussed, I now have Tasword Plus Two printing successfully in NEXT mode. Out of the box, underline and italic styles work too. I am going to experiment with the ESC code set up to see if I can get bold and colours that I believe your driver supports too. I also want to try out the wider functionality of Tasword Plus Two to see if it all works. I also hope to use the NEXT TAP IN/OUT menu to load and save documents to the NEXT SD card, but have not tried this out yet.
(By the way I was wrong to think Tasword 128 and Plus Two were the same. The latter does run on the 128K, but the 128K version does not have the boot up option to turn the print spooler off, which you discovered is necessary.)
I am yet to test the more detailed functionality of Tasword Two Plus, however this does mean that there is a powerful word processor available for the Next that prints directly to a modern Wi-Fi printer using your NEXT print driver and NEXT print server for Windows, which is fantastic!
Up until now, I have been able to use Spectrum word processors on the NEXT only in 48K mode with an LPRINT II centronics interface attached and a retro-printer centronics convertor device to print to my Wi-Fi printer. Apart from involving additional hardware, it also requires the loading of some OUT commands to set up and of course only runs Spectrum 48k word processors and applications that support the LPRINT II interface.
I am very busy for a couple of weeks now, but after that will spend some more time on this. Although I believe I have found an exception with Tasword Two Plus in being able to run in NEXT mode, it does make me wonder if there are any other old Spectrum applications that might also work? - Something I will pursue in the future too. Thanks for creating you drivers - made me very happy :-)
Hi Chris, I have your nextprintserver working on my HP printer now, which is great news because the direct to printer driver alone did not print out (although it did connect) Just messing about as I often do, I loaded Tasword Plus Two into my Next in NEXT mode (Tasword PLUS 2 is for a Spectrum 128k or Plus two, so it's suprising it loads in NEXT mode) I took the Tasword menu option to go out into BASIC and added the install driver and OPEN lines at the beginning of the Tasword BASIC. When I went back into Tasword Plus Two, I typed a few lines and then the print command. I didn't really exepect it to work, but to my surprise the text came through to the nextprintserver screen on my PC in full. I then got excited that it would print, but unfortunately it seems to lock there printing nothing. As you can see from my previous questions, I am not technical, but visually it seems tantilising close to working! Tasword Plus Two is an excellent word processor. It would be amazing if you could wi-fi print from the Next using it. Any thoughts?
Hi Chris. When I run nextprintserver.exe, either by double clicking on it in Windows 11 or running it from a MSDOS window the program runs showing my attached printer in the box and there are also the pdf printing options slectable as normal in Windows. It also shows the Consolas font and I can select others. However, I have " Waiting for connection message" at the bottom of the running screen. I have checked the Next is connected to my router and the internet using NXTEL sucessfully. I do not have your wi-fi printer driver running assuming that this is for direct communication to my printer and not required to use the nextprintserver software. Is that correct? If so, what part of the process am I missing to make nextprintserver connect to my printer. (Other info - My printer works with all my windows software. I am using an HP Envy 5546 printer, which does not work with your direct to printer wi-fi driver - it connects, but although the printer screen says "printing" it does not print anything, so I was hoping I would have success with nextprintserver. Thank you for your thoughts. Paul
Hi Chris, not had time to try Windows Printer Server yet, but can confirm on trying wfiprn.drv, the LED screen on my HP Envy 5547 displays "printing" so it appears to be connecting by nothing happens. I wrote a simple BASIC loop that simply keeps repeating the LPRINT "HELLO" command to see what happens and the Printer LED just constantly displays "printing" until I stop the program. I'm not a technical person, but it seems to me that the driver is connecting to the Printer, but for some reason the actual printing does not happen. The printer's status report says "Port 9100 enabled" It also says "WiFi Direct Off" . I have an SD card with a recent beta Next distro which I tried, just to see. On this the printer displays the printing message continuously with just a single LPRINT statement. I also tried your server software without a printer cable attached and got the message "HP Smart" ..."connecting" but it did not connect. I also changed my default printer to the actual printer name HP Envy ... and got the same result.
Please could you help?
I have followed the intsructions cafefully on repeated occasions without success.
The best result I have had is my printer screen stating "printing" on its LED screen, but the paper does'nt move and nothing is printed.
Please could you answer the following questions.
Do you have to .install wifiprn.drv from any specific directory on your SD Card?
Does wifiprn.drv have to be in a specific directory to work?
Do you have to install wifiprn.drv every time you do a soft reset?
Do you have to re-install wifiprn.drv after a hard reset set or power off / on. If not, how do you uninstall it?
Does your video mode frequency have an impact? I'm using VGA mode 4 at 50 Mhz
My wi-fi is definitely working as I can use ZXDB online to download programs.
My printer is an HP Envy 5546 (wi-fi printer) running on my home EE fibre broaband wi-fi network and works with all my other devices.
My router is a BT Smart Hub 2.
The fact that I get through to my printer sometimes suggests to me that I am at least connecting to it.
I assume the driver only works in standard Next mode.
Are there any settings in the Next config menu that could conflict or need to be changed?
I am using the current official Next distro Firmware v1.43, Core v3.01.10
I have a KS1 Spectrum Next.
Thank you
Paul
I really love this game. It's a great example of Jonathan Cauldwell's ability to create something that looks simple, but is at the same time compulsive in play.
It also shares the creative originality of many of his other programs.
I have a 48K Spectrum with AY chip, so its a shame I have no sound at all, unlike "Batteries not Precluded" another great JC game, where I get the full "128k" sound track and effects on my set up.