A lot of people ask about Amstrad printer drivers for Windows 3.x or 95...

There are no Amstrad specific printer drivers because the fact is that all the printers we've ever produced have been Epson compatible (with the notable exception of the DMP-1) so for Windows one should just pick a standard Epson driver. If it's a nine pin printer with a normal width carriage (such as DMP200/3000) then that means using something like FX80. If it's a wide carriage 9 pin printer (DMP4000) then that'd be something like the FX100. For our normal 24 pin printers (LQ3500) use a normal width Epson LQ driver (I'm never sure of the Epson LQ model names but I think the LQ550 should do it). For a wide carriage 24 pin printer (such as our LQ5000) use an Epson LQ wide carriage driver.

Note that for ages I have been telling people this and some have reported back that it works while many have said that the Epson drivers in Windows 3.1 work fine with the Amstrad printers but the ones in Windows 95 don't. And yet, as I say, some people say they do. For ages I have been trying to work out why it works for some and not others then someone (who chose to remain anonymous) wrote to my Q&&;A page to say that it was to do with whether the driver was set to just use a simple parallel port, bi-directional, ECP or EPP. Obviously the printer port in all the old Amstrad PCs on which the majority of these printers are being used are just the very simplest type of uni-directional parallel port so the driver must be set to use that!

Back in the mists of time Amstrad sold a successful range of 9 and 24 pin dot matrix printers. Unfortunately customers in the more technically advanced German market were demanding laser printers. Amstrad head office made a concious decision not to develop a laser printer because they are technically very complicated to engineer and at the end of the day they don't generate much profit. Amstrad GmbH (our German subsiduary) were pretty insistent so they went out on their own and contacted Sharp and bought a job lot of printers from them that they rebadged as "Amstrad LD6000".

Because this printer was not designed/supported by the head office here in the UK I'm afraid I cannot offer much help if you are a German customer who has one. I suggest you contact Amstrad GmbH directly but be warned that their office will close in the next few months (almost certainly by the end August 97). What I do know about it was that it emulates an HP Laserjet II so if your question is "Where can I get a Windows 95 driver?" the answer is simply to use the HP LJ II driver. I know for a fact that this works because I've seen one used with it.

If you need a part or consumables for it then I'm afraid I cannot help. You must contact Amstrad in Germany or, failing that, try Sharp's laser printer division.

DMP2000 DIP switch settings are as follows:

DS1-1 International character select 1 - see below

DS1-2 International character select 2 - see below

DS1-3 International character select 3 - see below

DS1-4 Off=CR when CR received, On=CR, LF when CR received

DS1-5 Off=Enable paper out sensor, On=Disable

DS1-6 Off=11 inch, On=12 inch

DS1-7 Data bits: Off=7, On=8

DS1-8 Character set: Off=Standard, On=NLQ standard

DS2-1 Zero: Off=unslashed, On=Slashed

DS2-2 Skip perforation: Off=Disable, On=Enable

DS2-3 Buffer mode: Off=Character, On=Graphics

DS2-4 Buffer mode: Off=Char/Graphics (above), On=Download

DS2-5 SLCT IN: Off=Not sent, On=auto sent

DS2-6 Alarm beeper: Off=Disable, On=Enable

DS2-7 Default face: Off=Bold off, On=Condensed/Bold on

DS2-8 Default face: Off=Condensed off, On=Bold on

DS2-9 Not Used

DS2-10 Not Used

DMP3000 DIP switch settings are as follows:

DS1-1 International character select 1 - see below

DS1-2 International character select 2 - see below

DS1-3 International character select 3 - see below

DS1-4 Off=CR when CR received, On=CR, LF when CR received

DS1-5 Off=Enable paper out sensor, On=Disable

DS1-6 Off=11 inch, On=12 inch

DS1-7 Character set: - see below

DS1-8 Character set:

DS2-1 Zero: Off=unslashed, On=Slashed

DS2-2 Skip perforation: Off=Disable, On=Enable

DS2-3 Buffer mode: Off=Character, On=Graphics

DS2-4 Buffer mode: Off=Char/Graphics (above), On=Download

DS2-5 SLCT IN: Off=Not sent, On=auto sent

DS2-6 Alarm beeper: Off=Disable, On=Enable

DS2-7 Default face: Off=Bold off, On=Condensed/Bold on

DS2-8 Default face: Off=Condensed off, On=Bold on

DS2-9 Not Used

DS2-10 Not Used

DMP4000 DIP switch settings are as follows:

DS1-1 International character select 1 - see below

DS1-2 International character select 2 - see below

DS1-3 International character select 3 - see below

DS1-4 Off=CR when CR received, On=CR, LF when CR received

DS1-5 Off=Enable paper out sensor, On=Disable

DS1-6 Off=11 inch, On=12 inch

DS1-7 Character set: - see below

DS1-8 Character set:

DS2-1 Zero: Off=unslashed, On=Slashed

DS2-2 Skip perforation: Off=Disable, On=Enable

DS2-3 Buffer mode: Off=Character, On=Graphics

DS2-4 Buffer mode: Off=Char/Graphics (above), On=Download

DS2-5 SLCT IN: Off=auto sent, On=not sent

DS2-6 Alarm beeper: Off=Disable, On=Enable

DS2-7 Default face: Off=Bold off, On=Condensed/Bold on

DS2-8 Default face: Off=Condensed off, On=Bold on

DS2-9 Not Used

DS2-10 Not Used

LQ3500/5000 DIP switch settings are as follows:

DS1-1 International character select 1 - see below

DS1-2 International character select 2 - see below

DS1-3 International character select 3 - see below

DS1-4 Off=11 inch, On=12 inch

DS1-5 Default skip peforation: Off=disable, On=enable

DS1-6 Alarm beeper: Off=Enable, On=Disable

DS1-7 Print mode: Off=Standard, On=LQ

DS1-8 SLCT IN: Off=not sent, On=auto sent

DS2-1 Paper out sensor: Off=Enable , On=Disable

DS2-2 Off=CR when CR received, On=CR, LF when CR received

DS2-3 Zero: Off=unslashed, On=Slashed

DS2-4 Reserved

DS2-5 Character set: Off=Epson, On=IBM-2

DS2-6 Unused

DS2-7 Auto loading: Off=Enable, On=Disable

DS2-8 Reserved

DS3 only on xxxxDI printers

DS3-1 Select baud rate if serial (see below)

DS3-2 Select baud rate if serial

DS3-3 Select baud rate if serial

DS3-4 Select parity if serial (see below)

DS3-5 Select parity if serial

DS3-6 Data length: Off=8 bit (default), On=7 Bit

DS3-7 Select serial/parallel and protocol (see below)

DS3-8 Select serial/parallel and protocol

Baud rate    DS3-1	  DS3-2	 DS3-3
====================================
  9600	    Off	   Off	  Off   (default)
  4800	    Off	   Off	  On
  2400	    Off	   On	  Off
  1200	    Off	   On	  On
   600	    On	   Off	  Off
   300	    On	   Off	  On
   200	    On	   On	  Off
   150	    On	   On	  On

Parity   DS3-4   DS3-5
======================
None 	Off	   Off  (default)
None 	On	   Off
Odd		Off	   On
Even 	On	   On

Interface/Protcol	  DS3-7  DS3-8
==================================
Parallel			   Off	Off	 (default)
Serial, Xon/Xoff	   Off	On
Serial, RTS read/busy  On	Off
Serial, Etx/Ack	   On	On

For all printers DS1-1, 1-2 and 1-3 are used to set the international characters availble as follows:

									Character
Country DS1-1 DS1-2 DS1-3 #23 #24 #40 #5B #5C #5D #5E #60 #7B #7C #7D #7E
Usa	    On	On	 On	  #	 $	@   [   \   ]	 ^	`   {   Ý   }	 ~
France   Off	On	 On	  #	 $  [2] [5] [B] [3]  ^	`  [I] [J] [Q] [M]
Germany  On	Off	 On	  #	 $  [3] [6] [E] [G]  ^	`  [K] [N] [R] [T]
UK	    Off	Off	 On	  œ	 $	@   [   \   ]	 ^	`   {   Ý   }	 ~
Denmark  On	On	 Off   #	 $	@  [7] [D] [H]  ^	`  [L] [D] [S]  ~
Sweden   Off	On	 Off   #	[1] [4] [8] [E] [H] [G] [I] [K] [E] [S] [R]
Italy    On	Off	 Off   #	 $	@  [9]  \  [I]  ^  [J] [2] [O] [Q] [U]
Spain    Off	Off	 Off  [0]  $	@  [A] [F] [C]  ^	`  [M] [P]  }	 ~

[0]=Peseta, [1]=International currency, [2]=a grave, [3]=Section symbol
[4]=E acute, [5]=Degree, [6]=A umlaut, [7]=AE dipthong, [8]=A umlaut
[9]=Degree, [A]=! inverted, [B]=c cedilla, [C]=? inverted, [D]=o slashed
[E]=O umlaut, [F]=N tilde, [G]=U umlaut, [H]=A ring, [I]=e acute,
[J]=u grave, [K]=a umlaut, [L]=ae dipthong, [M]=umlaut, [N]=o umlaut
[O]=o grave, [P]=n tilde, [Q]=e grave, [R]=u umlaut, [S]=a ring
[T]=Scharfes S sett

Where DS1-7 and DS1-8 are shown to pick the character set their meaning is as follows:

			 DS1-7   DS1-8
IBM #1		 Off     Off
IBM #2		 On	    Off
Epson FX Std.	 Off     On
IBM #1 NLQ	 On	    On

There are probably several companies that supply Amstrad printer ribbons but the one I know of that definitely stocks the whole range of DMP and LQ ribbons is as follows:

I'm also indebted to the irredoubtable Brian Watson for supplying me with a second source which is: