FPPRNT

                                 by
                            Frank Pawlowski
                               05/29/91

I just recently purchased an HP Laser Jet IIIP printer and after reading
about the rate at which the printer could accept data (55 KBytes/sec)
thought that maybe the system would run faster without a print spooler.
So I wrote a little printer character output routine that patches into
the TRAP 13 vector to just output characters to the printer port a bit
more efficiently than TOS does.  After some testing it is quite clear
that printers that can accept data at a high rate do indeed perform better
with the patched program.  The system I tested it on was a 1040ST with
4 Megs, TOS 1.4 and an ADSPEED accelerator board running in the 16 MHz
mode.

The test I ran compared the built in TOS routine, SI Ramdisk/Print Spooler
and my program FPPRNT.  The benchmark used was the time it took to output
a moderately complex page using Pagestream.  The time I recorded was from
the "printing page" message to the point that the print dialog box 
disappeared (this is the actual time required to output to the printer).
The results are as follows:

        Built in TOS routine            4 min, 07 secs
        SI Ramdisk/Print Spooler        1 min, 10 secs
        FPPRNT routine                         41 secs

Oh I did do one sneaky thing with FPPRNT, I put it at the end of my
auto folder so that it was probably near the last program to steel the
TRAP 13 vector and not suffer the overhead associated with other
program that patch into the TRAP 13 vector.  Accessories however 
get the last crack at stealing the vector.

Even though this benchmark was tested with an accelerator, I believe
that similar improvements will be made with unaccelerated machines using
even slower printers.  I used to have a Deskjet+ printer and noticed
that the printer would be waiting for additional data so I think that
this program would improve its performance.

Since this programs patches the standard TOS printer output routine it
will increase the print speed for any application you use that uses
the standard routine (virtually all programs!).  Of course, programs
that output using bit graphics (Pagestream, Calamus, GDOS applications,
etc.) will enjoy the largest improvement.

To use this program just put it in your auto-folder, preferably at or
near the end.  Test it and see if it helps you out!

This program is free to copy and distribute.  If you continue to use 
the program a $10 shareware contribution would be appreciated.

Although the program has been well tested and appears to be bug free, 
the author takes no responsibility for any damage it causes to any user.
If you find an incompatability or bug, please send a bug report in to me
and I will try to eliminate it.

Send shareware fees and any bug reports to:

        Frank Pawlowski
        23 Hickory Drive
        Amherst, NH 03031