In the past, Ghostscript used to incorporate these Apple Imagewriter devices: iwhi, iwlo, and iwlq. The version I had been using is gs 8.7 which is not 64-bit compliant. macOS Catalina cannot use it or any other 32 bit code, so printing to those devices fails.
More recent versions including the most recent Ghostscript 9.27 omit those devices. I don't know when they were omitted or why but it seems to be a while ago. Worse, I don't know how they get incorporated in Ghostscript. Other than building gs from its source code, which I have done, I don't know where to begin. The new Ghostscript 9.27 itself works fine in macOS Catalina. It includes many "built-in" devices but the ImageWriter devices I need are absent.
The drivers and Ghostscript were originally obtained from the Linux Foundation's Open Printing website: https://openprinting.org/printer/Apple/Apple-ImageWriter_II, but they were bundled and distributed in a package form that recent macOS versions cannot handle. That web page also indicates the drivers are "Type: Ghostscript built-in" which it no longer is in recent versions.
Here is gs -h using the installed 32 bit version:
GPL Ghostscript 8.71 (2010-02-10)
Copyright (C) 2010 Artifex Software, Inc. All rights reserved.
Usage: gs [switches] [file1.ps file2.ps ...]
Most frequently used switches: (you can use # in place of =)
-dNOPAUSE no pause after page | -q `quiet', fewer messages
-g<width>x<height> page size in pixels | -r<res> pixels/inch resolution
-sDEVICE=<devname> select device | -dBATCH exit after last file
-sOutputFile=<file> select output file: - for stdout, |command for pipe,
embed %d or %ld for page #
Input formats: PostScript PostScriptLevel1 PostScriptLevel2 PostScriptLevel3 PDF
Default output device: bbox
Available devices:
alc1900 <snip> inferno iwhi iwlo iwlq jetp3852 jj100 <many other devices> <snip>
Search path:
. : %rom%Resource/Init/ : %rom%lib/ :
/usr/local/share/ghostscript/8.71/Resource/Init :
/usr/local/share/ghostscript/8.71/lib :
/usr/local/share/ghostscript/8.71/Resource/Font :
/usr/local/share/ghostscript/fonts :
/usr/local/share/fonts/default/ghostscript :
/usr/local/share/fonts/default/Type1 :
/usr/local/share/fonts/default/TrueType : /usr/lib/DPS/outline/base :
/usr/openwin/lib/X11/fonts/Type1 : /usr/openwin/lib/X11/fonts/TrueType :
/usr/share/cups/fonts
Initialization files are compiled into the executable.
For more information, see /usr/local/share/ghostscript/8.71/doc/Use.htm.
Please report bugs to bugs.ghostscript.com.
iMac4:ghostscript-9.27 john$
The obvious sticking point is right there in front of me: "Initialization files are compiled into the executable." I know that, but what initialization files (if any) need to be included or modified to ensure their incorporation in the build? I have printer PPDs for the ImageWriter. They're just text files, and I think they would be required. Should they? How?
The only way I have attempted to build gs from source is to use ./configure followed by make That begins a long compilation process that takes a few minutes, and results in an executable gs that works fine in Catalina. The problem is it does not include the drivers I want. Attempting to print to that printer results in it printing "Unknown device: iwhi" in straight ASCII text (not bitmapped).
By now it ought to be painfully obvious I'm well over my head and don't know where to turn. Can anyone point me in the right direction from here?
Some background can be found here: Apple ImageWriter printer installation in… - Apple Community
. I wrote it. Some of its links are dead. If a picture doesn't load and you want to see it, click on it (it's a site problem).
A recent Discussion describing this dilemma is here: 32-bit ghostscript, required for ImageWriter and other printers using CUPS
The devices quoted were removed in this commit If you need them then you should be able to :
Clone our git repository, help on this is here
git checkout a87e380acd5e326f7d4e4380348bac393fac3058
copy the ghostpdl/devices/gdevadmp.c file somewhere convenient
git checkout master (or if you want a tagged release rather than the bleeding-edge code, git checkout ghostpdl-9.27 for example)
copy the saved file back to ghostpdl/devices/gdevadmp.c
Undo the changes in contrib.mak, configure.ac and unix-gcc.mak
(using the link to the gitweb you can see the diffs, they are not
extensive)
In the ghostpdl directory: ./autogen.sh then make
That all assumes you have a working C compiler (gcc, make etc) and development environment, but you say you've already built GS from source so that should be fine. The end result should be a woking Ghostscript with the additional device built in.
This:
Initialization files are compiled into the executable.
refers to the PostScript initialisation files, and won't help you with devices which are written in C and have to be compiled. While the line above is technically correct, you can use the -I switch to override the ROM file syatem (which is what that refers to) and have the initialisation files stored on disk instead.
PPD files aren't going to help you with Ghostscript, these are PostScript Printer Description files and they are used by applications which generate PostScript to customise the PostScript program for the specific printer. These are (I think) used by CUPS, but not by Ghostscript.
I think THIS is the commit to remove gdevadmp.
I think this was removed in a flurry of activity removing stuff referred to as "moribund" MacOS and classic Mac stuff, and I think this specific removal was unwarranted and unwise, as these drivers are still in use today Using foomatic-rip:
http://git.ghostscript.com/?p=ghostpdl.git;a=commit;h=a87e380acd5e326f7d4e4380348bac393fac3058
I am another Mac User and ImageWriter and ImageWriterLQ owner, I do not speak for Artifex.
at version 9.05, the file gdevadmp containing appledmp, iwhi, and iwlo, and iwlq was MOVED into the 'devices' folder. It survived there until version 9.20.
After version 9.20 it was removed in an operation that included only gdevadmp and its supporting files. The note does not say WHY it was removed.
So a 64-bit build of ghostscript 9.20 has some potential.
The files available at:
https://wiki.linuxfoundation.org/openprinting/macosx/foomatic#ghostscript_for_mac_os_x_103x_panther_-_mac_os_x_109x_mavericks
are still good, but gs and the filters need to be moved to a directory that remains accessible after the lockdown of sandboxing (about Mavericks) Suggested directory is noted in the apple support community discussion you posted earlier.
Links on the Ghostscript web site say that THIS (StackOverflow) is the official forum for discussing issues related to Ghostscript.
If that is not appropriate, what do Artifex and Ghostscript developers suggest is the "official" forum for Ghostscript issues?
I stumbled across this thread while working on a shelter-in-place project to resurrect my ImageWriter II by building Ghostscript and cups-filters for Catalina. My solution isn’t quite there yet; I can get 75% of the CUPS printer test page printed before silently crashing.
The solution for defeating sandboxing is to compile Ghostscript with dynamic linking disabled. Otherwise, even if you move the gs executable into a sandbox blessed location, the gs process will get killed as soon as it tries to link in the drivers. From my notes:
Download Ghostscript 9.20, the last gs with the Apple dot matrix drivers: https://github.com/ArtifexSoftware/ghostpdl-downloads/releases/tag/gs920
Build Ghostscript with the drivers statically linked in (otherwise sandboxing gets you): ./configure --disable-dbus --disable-dynamic --disable-gtk --with-drivers=APPLE,PS --prefix=/usr/local/ghostscript-9.20
I have not yet tried to forward-port the iwhi drivers and such into the Ghostscript; that’s my next task, in the hope that it fixes the silent crash.
I've been given a Matlab program that uses an external C function. I only have the compiled version of this external function, and the extension is .mexglx . From what I have already red, it seems that this extension is the mex-file version compiled with linux. I run matlab under windows XP, and my problem is that my Matlab is not able to read the .mexglx extension. So my question is: is there any mean to change a file with the .mexglx extension to a .mex? Because for the moment I do not have the source code in C, so I can't recompile it correctly. I precise that my version of Matlab is R2007b if it can help.
Thank you for your answer
No there is no way, sorry. You need to get the source code to build it for a different platform.
I created an exact replica of this file in a hex editor: https://i.imgur.com/LIImg.jpg
The problem is, the .exe file I made from it doesn't work, it says it's an invalid Win32 application when trying to run it. Is there something flawed in it? I've checked and double checked my file...
I'm not sure where I can host an exe file but I can email it if someone else wants to check it.
I should also mention I'm running Windows 7 64-bit.
The PE binary file from that illustration is already available here from the author, Ange Albertini. I have tested it both on Windows 7 and Windows 8/8.1, and it runs just fine, so you can use it for comparison with your binary.
In case anyone was wondering, the difference between the image and the executable is that there has to be 0's at the end of the file to match the section size. It doesn't work without that.
On my system I am using lrelease version of qt4.7.
I have generated qm file which is working fine in production environment.
But unfortunately our server uses lrelease version of qt3.3
and qm file generated from same ts file on server giving junk characters on production environment.
I got a suggestion of converting special characters of other languages ( french & Italian ) to hex code and its working fine.
But as I got large ts file, it is hard to change each special character to hex code.
Could you please suggest some fix ( besides changing lrelease version on server)
or any tool which converts special characters to hex code in ts files?
This works as designed. If your application runs on Qt4, use the Qt4 tools to generate the .qm files. Using Qt3's tools will not work.
To get from C++ sourcecode to a binary module, the process is roughly as follows:
set_of_source_files[a.cpp, b.cpp, ...] // conceptually, it doesn't matter where these are
||
|| Compiler <- [compiler_settings]
\/
set_of_object_files
||
|| Linker <- [linker_settings]
\/
binary module (dynamic library or executable)
Now, I know Visual Studio projects, they
Define a set of source files (directory structure and layout basically doesn't matter / is defined inside the project file)
Define the compiler settings for all (optionally each) of the source files
Define the linker settings
Define where to put generated output files
I don't know cmake, but apparently(?), the info one configures with cmake differs slightly from the info one puts into vc[x]proj files.
Is a "cmake configuration" just a differently formatted "vcproj file" or is there a conceptual difference? (Except for the obvious one (I assume) that the info I put into a cmake configuration is platform independent.)
An alternative twist to this question would be to answer -- in the context of above -- why/if(?) one would switch to cmake when only compiling for Windows with Visual-C++.
Cmake is a cross-platform make -- it starts from a set of source files and a relatively abstract set of directions about what to do with them. Based on those, it generates a set of platform-specific files. If you specify Windows/Visual Studio as the target, it can/will generate a vx[x]proj file for you to use.
Even if you're only using Visual C++ on Windows, it's possible you could benefit from cmake. The obvious possibility would be if you want to target a number of different versions of Visual Studio, and be able to directly generate the correct files for each, instead of generating files for the oldest version you want to support, and then depend on Visual Studio's upgrade feature to convert those to the target version.
Based on my experience with VS's upgrade capability (not particularly great), I'd say that could/would be a reasonable and valid use.