Driving Print Heads under software control

[Rossco]

I'm wnodering if anyone has tried pulling the "essential" bits from any printer and using the head as some form of 'painter'.

Also does anyone know how to get hold of 1) heads and the minimum bits to run it and 2) controller software to do the same.

I want to use the head "form another reason" other than ...well...printing.

Regards

Rossco

 

[hpnetserver]

You are talking about low level programming of the printer. I am afraid it is impossible unless Canon discloses details of the harware. The printer harware is controlled by the printer firmware. The firmware is the software talking to the hardware in bits. The printer driver talks to the printer through an interface provided by the printer firmware. This interface is a high level interface, which isolates the harware details from the driver. You can imagine that the driver will talk to the firware interface by providing the image data to be printed as well as data from the user setup of the printer, such as medium type, paper size, color management, etc. You simply can not program the printer hardware directly.