I have emulated a PDP 11/70 to run RSTS/E for decades.  The big thing that was missing for me was the ability to print.  Almost two years ago I switched from SimH, a great emulator, to Ersatz 11.  Ersatz 11 has the ability to print using the host computers printer.

When I switched over I got the printer working but, it wasn’t quite right  I seemed to loose a few lines of text over the page breaks.  The other night I had time to sit down and work though it.

If I print the traditional way, I could only get 80 columns.  Ersatz allows you to rotate the output to get wider printouts.  I had already rotated the output, but while I got the wider printouts I was loosing a couple of lines across the page breaks.  A little tedious trial and error resulted in a setting I could work with.  This line in the ersatz init file sets up the printer:  ASSIGN LP0: OSPRINT: /LANDSCAPE/ROTATE:90/FORM:LETTER/SIZE:132×58

Once RSTS/E was setup I changed the spool command file

FORCE KB: LP0:/DFL:55/LEN:55/HEAD:1/WIDTH:132

You will notice that the init file defines a page size of 58 lines of 132 characters, but the spool file defines it as 55 lines of 132 characters.  They don’t match but they do work on my Epson WF-2630.

The print out is not perfect.  The header pages from QUE are a few lines to long to fit on a page but the rest of the print out is great.