Printing support is coming to the A9home platform, retailer CJE Micros confirmed this week. Gaffer Chris Evans said printing documents over a network and direct to a device will be possible, provided a suitable driver file is available.The A9home USB-based printing system is known to support at least the Samsung CLP550 A4 colour laser printer, the Samsung ML1750 budget mono laser, the Canon iP4200 A4 colour inkjet, and the HP Laserjet 5000 A3 laser printer. Parallel port devices can be run through a USB-to-Parallel adapter.
Punters wishing to try out the updated printing system should email CJE Micros, quoting their postcode and A9home serial number. Users will be sent a new beta-version of the machine's USB stack, various modules and installation instructions. They will also need to download Printers 1.67a. Documents can be remotely printed using ShareFS, LanManFS or RemotePrinterFS, according to CJE Micros.
Up until now, A9home owners have struggled to print from their RISC OS 4.42-powered computers. It is hoped porting RISC OS 6 across to the ARM9-powered A9 platform will solve a number of OS-related issues reported by users. CJE Micros, who distribute the computer on behalf of developers AdvantageSix, admitted this work was behind schedule.
Chris said: "We would like to reassure owners that development of RISC OS 6 for the A9home is progressing, albeit not as fast as had been hoped. It will be made available as soon as physically possible. We apologise for the lengthy delay, and thank everyone for their continuing patience.
"Due to licensing issues we are not able to make the USB stack available for download from a web or FTP site."
A9home owner John Rickman, who quickly got his hands on the new printing software, said: "The installation was reasonably smooth, and I can now print to my CLP550 directly from the A9 instead of having to transfer files to another machine to print anything."
Update at 09:08 29/09/07
It's understood a printing-related bug within the Simtec RISC OS USB stack, used by AdvantageSix in the A9home was fixed a year ago and a beta version was first in the hands of a few testers about six months ago.
Links
CJE Micros website
The A9 website