Printing Directly To Acrobat in Win98

[bostonman]

Yes, you're reading this correctly. I have a Win98 based oscilloscope that I've repaired (I had a thread going about repairing it, but feel this deserves a new thread because it's changing subjects) and obviously can't connect many modern printers to this scope.

I'd like to print directly to a PDF file and then I can copy it to a USB stick.

The need to print is to print waveforms for reference.

The issue I see: maybe something exists where I can print to a PDF, however, I assume keeping the PDF compatible to work with a Win98 system and the current PDF versions will be difficult.

In any case, does anyone know of software (or a method) I can use to print to a PDF file?

[bdunham7]

I  think the XP/2003 version of this might work on Windows 98 SE, if that's what you have.  You could ask them.

http://www.cutepdf.com/products/cutepdf/writer.asp

Or you can print to an .eps file and then convert that to .pdf on a different machine.

https://kenchiro.tripod.com/howtoPDF.html

[Halcyon]

I recall using CutePDF back in the day, it was quite good. I can recommend this as well. You might need the older version of PDF Writer which you can get from archive.org at: https://web.archive.org/web/20050117091654/http://www.cutepdf.com:80/download.htm

[bostonman]

Thanks for the input.

I'm uncertain if either of you use an oscilloscope, but being able to print directly to a PDF (or a jpg) is a huge benefit; otherwise I need to take a photo and those always come out skewed.

[IanB]

What about doing Print Screen to capture the screen to the clipboard, then saving that as a jpg?

Any help here: ?

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/21532393/printing-to-a-file-in-windows98

[bostonman]

I hit obstacle number two: Win98 isn't recognizing the USB stick so I can't install CutePDF

I'll try digging out a Win98 CD in hopes it has USB drivers.

[LateLesley]

There's driver here which may be worth you trying.

https://www.philscomputerlab.com/windows-98-usb-storage-driver.html

https://www.raymond.cc/blog/how-to-install-usb-mass-storage-device-on-windows-98/

[bostonman]

This hasn't been easy.

This scope has Win98 v4.10.1998.

Two of the drivers in the link didn't work, I got an error stating something about the native USB for WinSE isn't compatible with this version of Windows.

Obviously it's been years since I worked with Win98, and I realized (more like remembered) Win98 came out with SE (second edition).

Most of the USB drivers I've tried require SE to be installed. Installing SE may cause an issue. From what I understand, something was configured in Windows for the oscilloscope software that allows turning off the scope with the power button rather than having to 'shut down' Windows. This allows Windows to boot without going through a scan disk or whatever.

It doesn't seem like the power button shuts down Windows because the scope turns off immediately when it's pressed.

Having said all this, I'm afraid to install SE because I fear it may overwrite whichever Windows files were altered to accommodate the scope software.

Also, when I installed CutePDF, it stated it's an evaluation (I assume this means I'd need to buy a license), however, it didn't place a virtual printer in the printer drop down menu.

From research, it seems this type of Motherboard (see attached picture) can't be upgraded to XP, however, the actual oscilloscope software doesn't seem to exist anywhere. The only way I've obtained it is by people uploading Win98 images from their hard drives. Others have upgraded the entire motherboard, OS (to Win10), somehow transferred the scope software, and replaced the display screen.

Obviously the above option isn't financially worth it (at least to me). Obviously upgrading to Win10 would buy me several years of compatibility, but I'd be spending a great deal of money for a scope that's probably worth $1500.

I guess an option would be software that can gather all the installation files - assuming this exists. Then maybe I can get lucky enough to install XP and then install the scope software; but I doubt any software is reliable enough to gather all the installation files.

In any case, maybe an easier option is somehow connecting to it via the ethernet port from a laptop.

Is it possible to somehow connect a laptop directly and transfer files? This still doesn't solve printing directly to a PDF file so the file exists on the scope's hard drive, but I'm trying to solve the most difficult issue first.

On a side note, I'd like any option to stand the test of time. I sense installing CutePDF (assuming the company can help provide one that works for Win98) will eventually print a PDF that's too old to be viewed on future versions of Adobe.

[T3sl4co1l]

What about doing Print Screen to capture the screen to the clipboard, then saving that as a jpg?

Surely you mean png gif?

(Preferably PNG if you have compatible software, but it wasn't too common back then.)

Tim

[bostonman]

Surely you mean png gif?

This idea could work, but the oscilloscope offers the option to print additional report data associated with settings that are not necessarily on the screen. Also, I assume other menus offer more unique reports that extend beyond the screen.

[bdunham7]

Obviously it's been years since I worked with Win98, and I realized (more like remembered) Win98 came out with SE (second edition).

On a side note, I'd like any option to stand the test of time. I sense installing CutePDF (assuming the company can help provide one that works for Win98) will eventually print a PDF that's too old to be viewed on future versions of Adobe.

Um, yes--Windows 98 wasn't worthwhile until SE came out.  Almost everybody and everything was SE, can't imagine being stuck with the original.

As for .pdfs, I'm not aware of any instance where Acrobat will not open a file from any previous version.  There's no real reason to drop such support.

[bostonman]

As for .pdfs, I'm not aware of any instance where Acrobat will not open a file from any previous version.  There's no real reason to drop such support.

You're probably correct.

Being a slave to Win98 (non Second Edition) is a bit scary. I need to install and save the installation file (should I need to reinstall) for a PDF virtual printer, hope I can continue using old thumbdrives in new machines (or vice versa), etc...

I imagine, as I alluded to earlier, if I can somehow network into the scope and view the C drive, I can just save PDFs to the hard drive (I have plenty of space as I've installed a 120GB or maybe 320GB) SSD, and copy/move PDFs as desired.

A bit more annoying than plugging in a thumbdrive, but it may allow for the test of time.

[bdunham7]

Can you clone the drive and then just try doing an in-place upgrade to SE?   

[bostonman]

Hahaha

Yes and no.

Yes, I'd be more than willing to experiment with cloning the drive (or needing to re-burn the known good working image I used for this drive should things go wrong), installing SE, and installing the USB drivers.

No because, after a year of having this scope in pieces, I finally tightened the last cover screw (had to buy some replacements at the store). In order to remove the SSD (assuming I need to re-burn the image should this be a failure), I need to cut hot clue that helps keep the plexiglass holding the SSD in place.

For the love of science, obviously I may need to gamble with installing SE and ripping apart the scope to reinstall the image if this doesn't work. I can't ask for help, and expect to get answers, if I'm unwilling to take chances.

In any case, I was hoping an easier solution existed. If I don't get any further suggestions, I'll pull the trigger and install SE.

In fact, I didn't think I'd get the responses I did as, after all, this is Win98.  So I'm grateful to get this far and shouldn't complain about re-burning the image.

[bdunham7]

In fact, I didn't think I'd get the responses I did as, after all, this is Win98.

I never imagined I would be troubleshooting 8080 systems in 2021 and my much newer CMU200 runs on DOS 6.2.2 (the very latest!) so Win98 is not so shocking at all.   It's surprising how long old tech persists. 

[LateLesley]

OK, this is a tough one... you got me thinking... like bdunham7 said, probably most stuff Win98 will be SE dependent now... So I thought, why not look for a win95 compatible version, that should be old enough.

So then I found this page http://oldcomputer.info/hacks/living95/index.htm

Which at point 4, 2/3rds of the way down the page, states

"4. PDF printer: PDFCreator 0.9.3
As you use poductivity applications, you should be able to make PDF of results. There are many commercial PDF printers which advertise that they work with Windows 95. That's not true. I tested many of them, none of them worked: installation failed or printing process ended with "DLL not found" error. The only printer which works is open source PDFCreator in its 0.9.3 version (later won't work)."

It then links here - https://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/files/PDFCreator/PDFCreator%200.9.3/

So maybe that is worth a try??

[SeanB]

Remember as well the initial USB drivers for Win95/98 used FAT12, so any USB drive over 512M would not work, and not be recognised. Getting hard to find sub 1G USB drives these days.

[Halcyon]

Remember as well the initial USB drivers for Win95/98 used FAT12, so any USB drive over 512M would not work, and not be recognised. Getting hard to find sub 1G USB drives these days.

FAT32 support started back in the Windows 95b (OSR2) days but was improved in Windows 98 so you could convert FAT16 disks over to FAT32 without losing data.

FAT12 was for floppy disks.

[Halcyon]

I've attached my copy of the generic USB mass storage driver for Windows 95c, Windows 98 and Windows 98SE.

See if that works.

[bostonman]

I’ll try it, thanks.

I thought of whether it’s possible to connect a Raspberry Pi via Ethernet and use it as an FTP for the scope.

Mynetworking knowledge is limited to basically plug and play, but I thought of whether a Raspberry Pi can be set up to mimic a server of some type, and, assuming I can print via PDF, I can use the Pi to move files.

[T3sl4co1l]

I don't know what all this plexi-glue business is about (WTF?), but just to add the note... it appears to have IDE, so if not all (1, 2, A/B) positions are in use then a Compact Flash card can be stuffed in there, it's stock IDE just need an adapter board to supply 5V and mate the pins.  Shows up as a, whatever it does in the BIOS.

Maybe you already did this, and this is redundant (but why glue in place, something that's removable?!..), or it's using some weird (contemporary?) SSD hence the concern, Idunno.

Tim

[bostonman]

This scope is an older model and it most likely had a 3.5" drive.

Either the previous owner, or another previous owner, upgraded the drive to a SSD. In doing so, the person needed to fit an IDE to SSD convertor.

I don't know what the inside looked like before, but whoever modified it cut a piece of thin plexiglass in order to mount the SSD. I'm guessing 3.5" drive hardware was removed and discarded because I don't see a way a 3.5" drive could have fit in this thing.

In any case, the plexiglass is mounted to a metal wall that holds the large power supply on the other side. The previous person, and myself, decided to mount the plexiglass using two screws (one in each corner) because four holes are meant to hold the power supply. The plexiglass has four screws holding the SSD. The IDE convertor doesn't have a mount and is held in by the force of the connector pins.

I chose to adhere the IDE convertor tot he plexiglass with hot glue for extra support. The two unscrewed corners have a dab of electrical chalking preventing the glass from twisting.

It's really overkill because the plexiglass it quite solid with just two screws, however, I wanted everything to be tight and neat.

In any case, this was more than I meant to explain. Did my Raspberry Pi idea make any sense?

[Halcyon]

In any case, this was more than I meant to explain. Did my Raspberry Pi idea make any sense?

Yeh it does.

You'll really need to think about how to implement this properly. You could set up a small file server and map a network share, but the problem you're going to run into are SMB version mismatches. Windows 98 supports SMB version 1 while modern operating systems now have SMB1 disabled by default (because it's considered insecure). You could re-enable SMB1 in Windows 10, but I would advise against doing that. If your little mini file server can be set up to support both SMB1 and SMB2/SMB3 then that could be a work-around.

You could also maybe transfer files via a combination of FTP and SMB? SMB3 out to your main network and FTP between Windows 98 and the server.

For simplicity, I think USB flash drives are the way to go. It shouldn't be too difficult getting them to work under Windows 98. As I said, try that generic driver I attached. I've personally used it many times and it has supported every USB drive I've thrown at my old computers.

[NiHaoMike]

What about an Arduino with native USB emulate a generic Postscript printer and save the data to a SD card?

[bostonman]

If i understand correctly, you're talking about a USB from an Arduino that simulates a printer plugged into the scope so the scope things it's printing to an external printer?

I like that idea because it offers the ability to avoid anything becoming obsolete. The only issue is that I don't know much about the scripts and stuff.

The USB driver that was provided seems like the best approach based on simplicity (providing it works). I still need to get virtual printer to PDF software, but it seems like I have a few options (more than I initially assumed).

[vk6zgo]

In fact, I didn't think I'd get the responses I did as, after all, this is Win98.

I never imagined I would be troubleshooting 8080 systems in 2021 and my much newer CMU200 runs on DOS 6.2.2 (the very latest!) so Win98 is not so shocking at all.   It's surprising how long old tech persists.

In my last job before retirement, we had a relatively modern, ("2000s") Spectrum Analyser, where the only way, (apart from photographically), to get "screenshots" was to save the screen to a floppy  disk!

It had all sorts of ways to control the SA remotely from a computer, but the one thing most likely to be needed was missing.

Normal procedure was to save to the floppy, put the floppy into the workshop computer which still had the requisite drive, save it to a USB thumb drive, take that thumb drive up the stairs to my small office & finally get the screenshot into the computer there.

I could then incorporate the screenshot into a report on that device.

Further on the subject of "old tech", in the same job, I found myself doing something I hadn't done for nearly 30 years-------pushing surface mount capacitors (we called 'em "chip capacitors" in the '70s) around with toothpicks on a PCB to tune an RF amplifier PCB whilst watching an RF sweep of its response.

The "rent an EE"s in the dear old PRC either left before they educated the factory that such things needed individual tuning, or never knew, themselves, so it was left to the customer to work out why we were cooking up unbalance loads on the combining units used to parallel up a bunch of small PAs to make a big one, & hence killing the amplifiers.

Hence, the screenshots & individual reports.

[bostonman]

As I said, try that generic driver I attached. I've personally used it many times and it has supported every USB drive I've thrown at my old computers.

You were correct, the Win98 driver worked. Maybe I made a wrong assumption or Win98 works a bit differently than I remember and what I'm familiar with now, but I installed the application in a new directory and thought that was all I needed. It wasn't until I went into the Device Manager and pointed the unknown USB device to the directory that it installed the driver.

Just for my understanding, and anyone else who decides to use this driver, I noticed a few anomalies. The USB thumb drive is labeled 4GB_USB, but in Win98 Explorer, it showed the USB in lower case. Also, I 'ejected' the drive, however, it was still showing in Explorer. If I attempted to click on it, I'd get an error saying not found (or something to that nature).

Are these faults of Win98 or a few hiccups in the driver? Either way, if these are my biggest USB problems, I'll be quite happy to work around them. 

Having experienced these 'hiccups', I"m wondering if I needed to do something with CutePDF, such as 'adding' it as a printer because it wasn't a device option when I attempted to print something; and then I uninstalled CutePDF.

I'll need to either try it again or send an email to the company asking which version(s) support Win98; and ask if their 'evaluation' version will need to be purchased.

On a side note, I don't know if this oscilloscope can be upgraded to XP. From what I understand, I have a model 54831 with an 'M' at the end. The 'M' means it was a military unit, and a military unit can't be upgraded unless the motherboard is replaced.

Either way, I'm not necessarily afraid to tinker with the software, but I went through some work to get the software running and afraid I'll dig myself into a hole trying to upgrade. When I first purchased the scope, the scope booted just fine. Suddenly I got an error and the HP community thought it was something in BIOS. I kept tinkering with settings in BIOS, then it was assumed the power supply was bad. After probably a month, I stripped the entire thing down to just the motherboard to eliminate any possibilities. In any case, I discovered the mSATA drive that the previous owner installed crashed (or the OS became corrupt). He sent the drive image he had, and Windows booted, but the scope software failed to initialize the scope (normal boot sequence is an Agilent logo covering the entire desktop, and, after about twenty-seconds, the relays click and the screen changes to the oscilloscope). Someone else sent their image and I had a similar experience.

Finally after about three or four drive images (comprised of both Win98 and the scope software), I managed to get one that was bare bones and worked. Unfortunately this also meant it had calibration and self-test data from the scope it came from. Due to the scope having issues in channel 2 and 3, I was unable to calibrate any channel thus making the good channels (and bad channels when used in the only states that weren't broken) to have incorrect measurements.

After discovering a few poorly replaced components, incorrect value components that were installed by a previous owner, and replacing two hybrids (one in each of the bad channels), I finally got the scope working and was able to calibrate it.

Having said all this, I haven't found an actual installation CD for just the scope software, meaning, I can't install Win98, and then install the scope software. This makes trying to upgrade to XP difficult, and most people I've found have upgraded to Win10 which requires the motherboard upgraded. While they are at it, they replace the screen with a higher resolution version.

Performing all these upgrades would certainly be nice, it's an old scope, and I feel due to obsolete parts, dumping too much cash into upgrades is more of a gamble.

[Halcyon]

I'm glad to hear you got it up and running. Not sure why the USB is playing up. The (mostly) sorted out the hot-plugging issues by the time Windows 98 came around.

Since you don't have the original media or a way to restore the operating system if it fails, can I recommend you image the disk now so you have a backup, in case the drive dies or something goes screwy.

Windows 98se was better and more stable. Perhaps after you do a backup, you could try an upgrade to 98se and see what happens?

[bostonman]

I do have the image someone gave me. I kept all the images I got should something go wrong. As I mentioned, removing the drive isn't easy. Attached is what I think is the scope in its original configuration with a 5.25" hard drive.

Mine is basically laid out in the same fashion except the mounting plate is plexiglass (or some sort of plastic) and I have an SSD with a IDE to SSD convertor. To remove the drive, all those boards need to be removed, cables, etc... It's a gamble because the working drive image I have can be restored, and I'd need to rerun calibration and self-test; and hope it passes at that point in time. If I remove the drive now to image, I need to disturb all that hardware/cables, and then I may want to image the drive again and again as I keep making changes.

If I can just connect to the IDE ribbon cable, then it would be much easier, but I don't have an adapter that connects IDE female to IDE female. I have a USB to IDE, but it's not male connector.

I need to dig deeper as to how people upgraded to Win10 because they somehow were able to install the scope software. I'd be happy with XP, but, for what it's worth, Windows is useless to me because (as of now) I just need a virtual printer (print to PDF) and USB.  My only need for a newer OS would be to keep the scope in a newer configuration that will be easier to work around in the future rather than dealing with Win98 issues in another decade. I do feel a newer OS would provide some comfort knowing it's more stable. When the hard drive crashed (or the OS), I was getting the BSOD (blue screen of death) and had a helpless feeling running through me.

I may try installing Win98SE. The worst that can happen is I need to dump my image back onto the drive and re-run calibration. After running calibration before, I did a search for any files that changed and found two text files that I assume is what the system reads since they contain the calibration data information. I saved them so most likely I can just overwrite those files should I have calibration issues in the future.

Now would be the best time to install SE because I have active support on here rather than dealing with this down the road when who knows what will exist. The only reason this scope is up and running is about 95% due to the contributors on EEVblog. In a decade from now, who knows what information will be available for an already outdated scope and an OS that most young people today haven't heard of.

[Halcyon]

Was the software ever available online to download? If so, I usually find all those old, broken links through archive.org with a good deal of success. That way you can still get the old stuff from the source.

[Halcyon]

Also, if you have some cash to spare, I would seriously look at replacing that old clunking drive with CompactFlash storage. It's going to be far more reliable in the long term, particularly if you're able to do a completely clean format/re-install of everything.

[bostonman]

Was the software ever available online to download? If so, I usually find all those old, broken links through archive.org with a good deal of success. That way you can still get the old stuff from the source.

It was taken offline, but someone extracted the whole website and provided it on a FTP site (or whatever the proper term is). I downloaded the software which included (if I remember correctly) Ghost to install the image. Unfortunately the scope failed to initialize after Windows booted. This was the same result I got from the previous owner who provided the drive image he extracted (and installed) when he upgraded to a SSD (technically a mSATA).

Someone else provided their entire drive which was about 23GB, however, another person provided their (very clean) drive image which worked, so I never installed the 23GB (although all I had was a full extraction and not an actual install image.

Also, if you have some cash to spare, I would seriously look at replacing that old clunking drive with CompactFlash storage. It's going to be far more reliable in the long term, particularly if you're able to do a completely clean format/re-install of everything.

As mentioned in previous posts (and this one) the HD has been upgraded to a SSD. After the mSATA crashed, I bought a Western Digital SSD, installed the clean image provided by someone, and it works just fine now.

[spostma]

I use DoroPDF on Win98, works fine for me on all windows versions:
https://www.techspot.com/downloads/6100-doro-pdf-writer.html

If your scope program uses direct hardware access, then you might need to use a driver like giveIO to allow IO port access to user space programs.

Use google translate for a lot of useful info on getting old software to work on newer windows versions:
https://www-user.tu-chemnitz.de/~heha/basteln/PC/LPTISA/emulate.de.htm
https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/vstudio/en-US/dc5bfae6-21d6-4e70-a7c1-4f548b607625/giveiosys-on-win764?forum=vcgeneral

direct LPT port access under 64-bit Windows:
https://github.com/NMCity/lpt1giveiosys64bit

Probably you will have better chances on a 32-bit win7 or win10 than on a 64-bit version.

Anyway, use virustotal.com to verify all downloads first!

[bostonman]

Thanks for the information.

I got a reply from CutePDF and will try these files tomorrow:


First, Please download and install the latest version of FREE converter " gs950w32.exe" off
https://download.cutepdf.com/public/gs950w32.exe

Then install  https://download.cutepdf.com/public/cutewriter28.zip

[bostonman]

I use DoroPDF on Win98, works fine for me on all windows versions:

Unfortunately DoroPDF didn't work. It installed and printed a Notepad document, however, when it came time to print a scope screen, it printed just squares. I sent an email to the creator and we exchanged a few emails. When I sent an email with screenshots showing the issues, I didn't get a reply. Today I sent a follow up email and the email was returned.

Odd that the person would delete their email after all this time, so I'm wondering if he placed me on some block list to avoid having to deal with me.

Unfortunately I still haven't found a piece of software that will work.

[Halcyon]

As others have suggested, can't you just use the 'Print Screen' function and save the image as a file. I know it's an extra step. Maybe you can set up a macro?

Grab one of these https://techkeys.us/products/onekeyboard as a shortcut button to "Print Screen and Save" all in one action?

[magic]

I wonder if it might be possible to set up the PDF printer on a different computer and make it available to the scope over network?

[bostonman]

s others have suggested, can't you just use the 'Print Screen' function and save the image as a file. I know it's an extra step. Maybe you can set up a macro?

I believe I commented on that. It may be possible, but the scope prints additional information (if selected) such as the scope waveform settings.

I can try it, but think the resolution would be quite bad.

I wonder if it might be possible to set up the PDF printer on a different computer and make it available to the scope over network?

This is something I alluded to earlier. Maybe use a Raspberry Pi to connect via a network and trick the scope into thinking it's printing to a printer. Unfortunately this is an area I know almost nothing about.

After digging deeper, I found someone who used PrimoPDF v3 and said that was the only version they could get working on a Win98 machine. I just downloaded it and will try it later this afternoon.

[rsjsouza]

Wow, I am very impressed that you were able to make the "print to PDF" driver work on Windows 98. 

Back in those days, Adobe tightly controlled the PDF file format and, IIRC, the handsomely priced Adobe Acrobat SW (not the free Acrobat Reader) came with the Adobe Distiller, which was the de facto "print to PDF" driver at the time.

[bostonman]

No, I haven’t yet, someone online got it to work.

[magic]

You shouldn't need RPi. AFAIK any Windows machine can share printers with other Windows machines if they have a network connection.

That's assuming that the scope has a LAN port. Or at least COM or LPT - those too could be used for networking in W98 ("direct cable connection" IIRC), although I have no idea if it's still supported in newer Windows.

[Halcyon]

You shouldn't need RPi. AFAIK any Windows machine can share printers with other Windows machines if they have a network connection.

That's assuming that the scope has a LAN port. Or at least COM or LPT - those too could be used for networking in W98 ("direct cable connection" IIRC), although I have no idea if it's still supported in newer Windows.

The problem will still be getting a Win98 print driver that is compatible.

[rsjsouza]

One thing that I used at the time (in the absence of the Distiller) was to set up a Postscript printer (use the Apple Color Laserwriter driver, as the HP drivers borked the Postscript file with their own special characters) and then use Ghostview/Ghostwriter to convert it to PDF.

When selecting the printer port, use FILE: instead of an LPT or LAN port.

(Sorry if someone suggested this already)

Edit: these drivers are part of every windows install since 3.11.

[ve7xen]

Back in those days I always used PDFCreator, I believe it supported Win98 until sometime around version 1.2, but may need the .NET runtime.

As for a 'print to PDF server' this is also totally viable. CUPS is the standard Linux print server and should run fine on an RPi. Install the cups-pdf driver, add it as a printer and share it. On the Windows side, any generic PostScript driver should print over the network to this just fine. Then it will dump its output in /var/spool/cups-pdf which you can share over the network with Samba or whatever.

[magic]

I don't think Windows (particularly Windows 9x) and CUPS would want to talk to each other

If there is a way to hack some Postscript printer driver to write to a Postscript file instead of a real printer, that could be the winner
I'm not sure how the procedure is supposed to work, though.

[bostonman]

When I tried installing PrimoPDF, I got two errors:

Your MSI version 0.0.0.0, requires 3 or greater
Your NET Framework version required version 2 or greater

I assume one or more possibilities. Any versions it downloads will be too new for Win98. A possibility exists any installation of these will compromise the scope software and/or working function of Win98 that allows it to turn off without having to shut down.

Also, if these successfully install, the scope is still a slave to relying on obtaining additional software that may not be available in the future. Obviously I can make drive images, backup any downloaded files, etc... but since I have the resources now, I'd much rather solve this in a much simpler method.

I just looked at MSI and it requires XP which eliminates using PrimoPDF. I'm assuming the issues I have with the other pieces of PDF printing software is similar; Win98 on this machine doesn't have enough updated files.

Unfortunately I don't know anything about drivers (except the plug and play aspect), but I still think the best approach would be a Raspberry Pi that connects via the network and tricks the scope into thinking it's printing to a printer, and the Pi automatically converts it to PDF.

For the price of a Pi, it would be worth tying up one to work exclusively for this scope.

[ve7xen]

I don't think Windows (particularly Windows 9x) and CUPS would want to talk to each other

What would make you think that? Windows 98 supports network printing and will print to CUPS just fine via IPP or 'raw TCP', or even Samba if you went to the trouble of setting that up.

If there is a way to hack some Postscript printer driver to write to a Postscript file instead of a real printer, that could be the winner
I'm not sure how the procedure is supposed to work, though

IIRC you can change the output port to FILE:filename or something like that to print the driver's output stream to a file, but it's a bit cumbersome.

[magic]

I assumed that CUPS is limited to common UNIX protocols while Windows would use its own solution, like it does with most things.
IPP supposedly came out in 1999, by the way.

I dunno, printing to a local PS file seems easier than setting up an RPi with Samba. And Halcyon said that modern Windows requires potentially insecure configuration tweaks before it talks to W98.

[ve7xen]

I assumed that CUPS is limited to common UNIX protocols while Windows would use its own solution, like it does with most things.
IPP supposedly came out in 1999, by the way.

Yeah, it looks like my recollection was incorrect and Windows 98 doesn't support TCP printing at all natively...oops, but CUPS does support basically all the simple protocols out there, LPD/JetDirect/IPP, you can easily print to it directly from any Windows that supports TCP printing. It looks like Samba would be the simplest path, but using HP's JetDirect software would probably work too.

I dunno, printing to a local PS file seems easier than setting up an RPi with Samba. And Halcyon said that modern Windows requires potentially insecure configuration tweaks before it talks to W98.

Printing to the network potentially kills two birds with one stone, getting the file off the scope onto the network and handling PDF conversion, but there are of course many ways to skin this cat. I assume you can set up such a print server using Windows too, I'm just not a Windows guy.

[amyk]

archive.org might have a suitable version of real Acrobat that you can use.

As for the comments about installing Win10(!?), I surely hope you're joking because Win98-era hardware is probably going to already be too slow for XP, and it being a scope means the DOS-based Win9x could be allowing scope software access to the hardware directly.

Upgrading to 98SE is probably doable, however.

[bostonman]

Printing to the network potentially kills two birds with one stone, getting the file off the scope onto the network and handling PDF conversion, but there are of course many ways to skin this cat. I assume you can set up such a print server using Windows too, I'm just not a Windows guy.

Well as I mentioned, I have a Raspberry Pi sitting around and that runs Linux. I don't know anything about servers or anything more in Linux that a GUI and basic commands though.

As for the comments about installing Win10(!?), I surely hope you're joking because Win98-era hardware is probably going to already be too slow for XP, and it being a scope means the DOS-based Win9x could be allowing scope software access to the hardware directly.

If you read further back, you'll see I stated that in order to upgrade the OS, the motherboard needs to be replaced. This scope is old, and, in my opinion, has many un-repairable points of failure due to obsolete components such as the hybrid chips. I can spend time and money trying to update the Windows portion of the scope, and eventually a component can fail that would make the scope unusable. In the end, I'd be stuck with a "computer" that I can't really use elsewhere.

As for the cost, not that a new motherboard is expensive, but I feel it's a waste of an expense based on what I stated above (and this assumes I can even find the scope software which seems obsolete too - I'm uncertain how others have done it but they have registered copies of Win10 and are understandably unwilling to provide an image).

Also, as far as I can tell, Windows plays a very small role in the the scope. Windows is there to automatically launch the scope software and handle providing drivers for hardware. The scope is outdated not because it's slow, but because it's Win98 based. I'm trying to find a printing solution that isn't a lengthy process because I may decide to print several waveforms while measuring a circuit, and a process that doesn't result in having to find another solution in a year because this one is outdated already.

I'm uncertain if a Raspberry Pi is the best solution because I would need to connect it to the scope each time, and then connect to the Pi to extract the files, however, I feel unless I find a piece of software that works on a barebones Win98 OS that prints to PDF successfully, this may be the only other option.

[magic]

IMO you should try that PS file printing trick.

I found some instructions:
http://www.sketchpad.net/postscript-printer-win98-1.htm
Not sure where the file is saved, hopefully you will figure it out

PS is a fairly standard format like PDF. Lots of software to view it or convert it to something else.

[bostonman]

I'll try this next.

The developer for Doro sent an email to me today. I don't know why the previous emails were returned as being unable to send.

In any case, I'm uncertain whether this will be resolved and I can use Doro, however, I guess this can be an option too.

[bostonman]

I tried basically the last program I could find - PDFCreator 0.9.3. I had downloaded it at the end of last week, however, I forgot I didn't try it because I was busy trying different versions of other programs.

Today I installed it without any issues and got a great PDF (see attached).

As of now, the scope boots Win98 without issues, the scope software initializes correctly, I have USB recognizing thumb drives, I can print to PDF, and all the repairs I did to the scope seems to have paid off since the measurements all seem accurate.

[Halcyon]

That's great! Your prints look really nice.

I'm glad we could all help. Thanks for sharing your process here for anyone else who might be looking to do something similar in the future.

[bdunham7]

Oooh, color!  Very nice work.  And it certainly looks Windows 98ish. 

[bostonman]

And it certainly looks Windows 98ish.

I think the Wn98ish gives it a good look - it's a reminder about what Windows once was. Compared to my other scopes that required I hold my phone to take a picture while holding a scope probe, I'll take a Win 3.1 look if need be.

I posted a question on the HP forum on trying to upgrade to XP. I didn't care to, but someone told me XP has more features. I'm not actively pursuing this, but, if I happen to stumble on an XP image, I may try it.

At this point, I have a working Win98 image, USB drivers, and a PDF printer, so worse case, I'd need to reinstall all this stuff.

Unfortunately I'm not getting many answers about XP, and I have more projects to work on, so this scope may sit as the perfectly good working scope it is - and I plan to use this scope to repair a C64. My goal is to measure a good C64, save waveforms, compare it to my bad one, and also have waveforms that I can provide to the C64 community so others can repair their units.