At the end of May 1992 Atari released a new version of GDOS called FONT GDOS. This program is freely distributable, although ATARI retains the copyright on it. If you are already using GDOS or G+PLUS from Codehead there seems little reason to switch to FONT GDOS. There may be compatability problems with some software (there may not be either but if your software works why fight it). I have heard that some of the new printer drivers are faster than older ones. In thsi case you may want to install a printer driver from the new package. They should work with older versions of GDOS while the reverse is not generally the case. Apparently FONT GDOS interacts poorly with WARP 9, the screen accelerator, resulting in a slowup of screen activity. Enclosed with the FONT GDOS package are the following programs: FONTGDOS.PRG This is the actual GDOS program. It must be placed in the AUTO folder on your boot drive. Do not do so until after installing the ASSIGN.SYS and EXTEND.SYS files (done below). FONTGDOS.ACC FSM.ACC FSMPRINT.ACC These are also available in .CPX format for those with TOS 2.05 or higher. These accessories are needed for configuring or changing a configuration with FONT GDOS. As they take up 150K of valuable memory space I recommend only installing them to set up the system. To be loaded a .ACC file must be placed in the root directory of your hard disk. To make sure that they do not load simply change the name of each to be ???.AC rather than ???.ACC. Under "DESK" on the desktop these accessories will be called FSM FONT MANAGER PRINTER SELECTOR and PRINTER CONFIG Before discussing how to use these to set up FONT GDOS we must have a folder for fonts and drivers. ATARI has provided the following drivers META.SYS used for producing .GEM meta files FX80.SYS used for 9 pin EPSON type printers, most printers can use this driver. 120 by 144 DPI NB15.SYS used for 24 pin EPSON type printers which can use 180DPI graphics. The name comes from the STAR NB15 printer series. NECP.SYS used for printers which are compatable with the NEC P series of 24 pin printers. These can produce 360DPI graphics. Such printers include the Panasonic 1123 1124 etc models as well as most 24 pin Epson models LASERJET.SYS used for Hewlett Packard Laser Jet printers and compatables. resolution 300 DPI BJ10.SYS used for the Canon bubblejet series at 360 DPI resolution DJ5.SYS used for the Hewlett Packard Desk Jet and compatables. 300 DPI NX1000.SYS Used for color pronters compatable with the STAR NX1000 RAINBOW. 120 by 144 DPI OKI20.SYS used for the OKIMATE 20 printer. 120 by 144 DPI PAINTJET.SYS used for the Hewlett packard PaintJet series of color printers. 180 DPI SLM.SYS used for the ATARI laser printer series. 300 DPI MEMORY.SYS prints to memory. Doubtful that there is any use for this at the end user level. SCREEN.SYS It actually does not come with the package as it is built into the ST. It is the screen driver. Taken together these drivers total 722,000 bytes. The user generally has to install META.SYS and 1 printer driver. The drivers selected and the fonts to be used with them must be placed in a folder. This folder may be on any drive and may have anyname. The traditional name is GEMSYS. To set up FONT GDOS one must first create the files EXTEND.SYS and ASSIGN.SYS. This is done with the accessories. First click on the accessory "FSM Font Manager". When this opens click on the "OPTIONS Menu". Next click on "OUTLINE FONT SETUP". Next click on "Set Font Cache". Set the 3 cache sizes to 20,20, and 200. Now click on OK. Next click on OK again and then on SAVE. Click on "YES" to save an EXTEND.SYS file. Now select EXIT. The process is somewhat more convoluted than necessary since the accessory is designed for FSM GDOS of which FONT GDOS is a part. Now click on the accessory "Printer Selector". This accessory is badly named since it also sets up the ASSIGN.SYS file. Click on "Options". Click on "Set Font/Driver Path". This is where we tell the system where we put the drivers and fonts. The system will come up with the root directory in the box. Simply click on this to get a standard file selector. Select the directory that you desire; for example "C:\GEMSYS". Click on Ok and then on "OK" again. The system will put up a message saying "Scanning Bit Mapped Fonts" and then return you to the menu. Now click on "Driver Installation". You must set up drivers for devices 1 to 9 and for 21 and 31. Under Active devices use the up and down arrows to select the Device numbers and then by using the name selector choose "SCREEN.SYS" for each of 1 through 9. Now switch to the bottom half of the screen. Move the driver number to 21. Now using the name pointer choose the printer type which you have; ex NB15.SYS. Click on "ADD" and then "YES". This is necessary to ADD the device to the Top part which represents available devices. Now move the device number to 31. This time choose META.SYS as the driver. Click on "ADD" and then "YES" Now click on "MENU". Click on "Font Installation" For this purpose you must know what the the Device Ids represent. ID # USE 1 Default Screen device 2 ST Low Resolution 3 ST Medium Resolution 4 ST High Resolution 5 Reserved 6 TT Medium Resolution 7 Reserved 8 TT High Resolution 9 TT Low Resolution 10 Reserved 21 Main Printer Driver 31 GEM Metafile driver You need only install fonts for devices which you use. There is no point in installing fonts for a screen resolution that you can not use. Note that the same fonts may be used for many screen resolutions. Basically you may use the same fonts for ID #s 4, 8 and 9. These fonts could also be used for 2, 3 and 9 but would not look correct. Assuming you have a MONO monitor on an ST select ID #4. You will have no "ACTIVE FONTS" as of yet. Click on "ACTIVE FONTS". Click on "Show Inactive Fonts". You now have a list of fonts which are available. This includes fonts which are not for the particular device that you are using. Select the ones you want by holding down the shift key and clicking on the correct ones. The names should tell you whether they are screen fonts or printer fonts. You will likely have to check with the documentation that came with the fonts to determine what convention was used for naming the fonts. Once you select the fonts click on "Append". You will be asked if you really want to and say "Yes". You must now do the same for ID # 21, the printer. You do not generally select fonts for device 31. I have never seen fonts made for device 31. Having selected fonts for all desired devices, click on "MENU". Next click on "TOP MENU". If no printer is listed as "Current Printer" select the same printer as chosen in setting the driver. Click on "SAVE" and answer "OK" to save the ASSIGN.SYS file. Now click on EXIT. The last accessory is used to modify the printer drivers. "Printer Config" does what its name implies. It does not change the printer you have chosen. You may modify the quality, the paper size, and in some cases the colors chosen. You are now ready to go. Move FONTGDOS.PRG into the AUTO folder on your boot disk and reboot the system. When we set the size of the cache to 200 (K) in this exercise we selected a fairly large cache size. The larger the cache size the faster FONT GDOS will work. The size of the cache has to be larger than the largest font that you are using. The size of the font can be determined simply by looking at the file sizes for each of the font files. A larger font cache (if you can spare the room) allows the system to keep more fonts in memory at once and therefore cut down on disk access. The result is a faster job. Generally printer fonts are larger than screen fonts.