### The Printer

Many different types of printers could be attached to a TRS-80. The emulator supports a simple text mode printer. Use Printer → Printer... to see the current output in a "Printer Output" window. There's a Save button to save the output to a file.

The printer window can automatically pop up when the emulator prints something. Use Printer → Auto Popup to enable this feature. You can also simulate a powered-down (or disconnected) printer with Printer → On. The printer window is a simple ASCII view of the printer output. It works great for BASIC listings and such but for more complex output see below for how to fully emulate a printer.

As a convenience the emulator goes into turbo mode whenever output is sent to the printer. This "printer auto-turbo" can be turned off and on with the `-pt` and `-ptx` command line options or via the Printer → Auto Turbo menu entry.

Like the serial ports the printer port can be mapped to a TCP/IP connection. To listen for a connection use `-p @port` or the "TCP/IP Listen" option in the Printer → Connection... dialog. To make a connection use `-p host:port` or "TCP/IP Connect" in the connection dialog.

To attach an emulated MX-70 printer use `-p :mx70` on the command line or use Printer → Connection... and select it from the drop-down.

The Electric Crayon colour display actually attaches via the printer port. The idea was to make it easy to program. For example, a BASIC `LPRINT"ERS"` will erase the screen. See the section on the Electric Crayon for some details on how to use it.

In batch mode any TRS-80 printer output is written to a file called `trs80-printer.txt`.