I had an Apple //e growing up, but looking back on things from today, sometimes
I wish it were a Commodore 64.

My Apple //e had a nice app called "The Print Shop" that could print to my ImageWriter II which had a CMYK ribbon. I have a few questions:

1. Was there ever a color version of "The Print Shop" available for the Commodore 8-bit family of computers?
2. Or was everything printed in monochrome?
3. Are there any .D64 images of "The Print Shop" graphics disks which are compatible with the Commodore 8-bit family of computers?

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I personally do not remember any colour version.

There were very few directly-compatible colour printers for C64. There was an Okimate printer with the IEC port, and a couple of models of Star printer.

There would have to be a printer driver especially written.

One solution would be to transfer the graphics to GEOS and use its printer drivers, as there are several ways to convert PrintShop/PrintMaster graphics to
a GEOS format.

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and a couple of models of Star printer.

Those wouldn't include the NL-10, would it? That's the only Star printer that VICE is able to emulate.

One solution would be to transfer the graphics to GEOS and use its printer

drivers, as there are several ways to convert PrintShop/PrintMaster graphics to
a GEOS format.

Such as how? I unfortunately cannot get GEOS's Convert utility to work on any of the graphics that I found on some Print Shop graphics disks.

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Brandon Taylor wrote to All <=-

1. Was there ever a color version of "The Print Shop" available for the Commodore 8-bit family of computers?

I don't believe so. I used to work for a Commodore reseller back in the day, and I don't recall there being a color printer option for the C64.

There probably were color printers at the time, but they would have been priced far above what a C64 user could have paid.

So there would have been no demand for a C64 color Print Shop.


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On 1/11/20 3:48 PM, Ron Lauzon wrote:

Brandon Taylor wrote to All <=-

BT> 1. Was there ever a color version of "The Print Shop" available for the
BT> Commodore 8-bit family of computers?

I don't believe so. I used to work for a Commodore reseller back in the day, and I don't recall there being a color printer option for the C64.

There probably were color printers at the time, but they would have been

priced

far above what a C64 user could have paid.

So there would have been no demand for a C64 color Print Shop.

Hello, and IIRC there was a C-64 color printer that used 4 ballpoint
pens. Don't know what commercially-available apps might have been
available that would use it, though. Sincerely,

--
J. B. Wood e-mail: arl_123234@hotmail.com

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J.B. Wood <arl_123234@hotmail.com> wrote:

On 1/11/20 3:48 PM, Ron Lauzon wrote:

Brandon Taylor wrote to All <=-

BT> 1. Was there ever a color version of "The Print Shop" available for the
BT> Commodore 8-bit family of computers?

I don't believe so. I used to work for a Commodore reseller back in the day,
and I don't recall there being a color printer option for the C64.

There probably were color printers at the time, but they would have been priced
far above what a C64 user could have paid.

So there would have been no demand for a C64 color Print Shop.

Hello, and IIRC there was a C-64 color printer that used 4 ballpoint
pens. Don't know what commercially-available apps might have been
available that would use it, though. Sincerely,

The VIC-1520 plotter. Not the same as a conventional colour printer,
but fun (possibly more fun) anyway: http://www.zimmers.net/cbmpics/peserial2.html

Looking further through the printer listing on that site, a few
other Commodore serial printers with colour support are described
there:

MPS-1224c:
http://www.zimmers.net/cbmpics/plserial2.html

MCS-810 (I've got one of these! But never had a ribbon for it and
the head's worn out (probably from me printing on heat-sensitive
paper as a solution to the ribbon problem)): http://www.zimmers.net/cbmpics/pmcs810.html
- Rebadged Okimate 10 printers, so there's an entry point for
researching colour printers from other manufacturers.

MCS-801:
http://www.zimmers.net/cbmpics/pmcs801.html

--
__ __
#_ < |\| |< _#

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Yeah, well, as J.B. Wood just said, even if you had a color /printer,/ you couldn't really use it to its full potential on an 8-bit Commodore machine, as there wasn't any /software/ that printed in color. No, I think the best bet would have been an Apple
II series machine, or else an "IBM-compatible" PC. On the other hand, a Commodore enthusiast would have to wait a little while for the Amiga series to show up. In that case, what was the best software for color printing on an Amiga?

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On Sat, 18 Jan 2020 15:34:17 -0800 (PST), Brandon Taylor wrote:

Yeah, well, as J.B. Wood just said, even if you had a color /printer,/
you couldn't really use it to its full potential on an 8-bit Commodore machine, as there wasn't any /software/ that printed in color. No, I
think the best bet would have been an Apple II series machine, or else
an "IBM-compatible" PC. On the other hand, a Commodore enthusiast
would have to wait a little while for the Amiga series to show up. In
that case, what was the best software for color printing on an Amiga?

IIRC we got :decent" results with Deluxe Paint. I cannot remember what
printer it was. It was in the later 1980s and was a dot matrix machine
with a colored ribbon.
--
Andreas

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On 17/01/2020 18:22, J.B. Wood wrote:

Hello, and IIRC there was a C-64 color printer that used 4 ballpoint
pens.  Don't know what commercially-available apps might have been
available that would use it, though.  Sincerely,

It was marketed as "printer/plotter", which was true. From certain point
of view :-)

It was good for plotting line graphics and it had the ability to plot
text, with a nice vector font...

http://e4aws.silverdr.com/hacks/6500_1/

You can find the font about mid-page down there.

But I would not recommend to use the plotter to colour-fill any sizeable
paper area. Or "print" longer BASIC listings (as I myself tried back in
the days :-)

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FWIW, there was a color-printing version of Print Shop for the Apple II. It worked with the Apple Dot Matrix Printer. IIRC, graphics were printed out in 4 colors.
It was great to see such color print-outs at the middle school.

Truly,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group - http://www.dickestel.com/fcug.htm
Southern California Commodore & Amiga Network - http://www.portcommodore.com/sccan

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