Technical Note: Using PrintOMatic in Windows 3.1

Updated: 4/19/04
Products: PrintOMatic MX Xtra, PrintOMatic Xtra 1.6.5
Platforms: Windows 3.1

Windows 3.1, also known as "16 bit Windows" or "Win16", is nearly obsolete, though computers running this version of Windows are still around. (Especially in educational and non-profit settings.)

With a 10th-generation multimedia authoring tool, it’s a bit much to still expect it to support Windows 3.1, and in fact, with the release of Director 7, Macromedia quit supporting 16 bit Windows altogether, because it’s just too difficult to move ahead and still maintain backwards compatibility with such an old system.

As Director, Authorware and Shockwave have evolved, 16 bit versions of Xtras for these programs have l become harder and harder to build and maintain, and excruciating to debug.

In recent releases of PrintOMatic, Electronic Ink has also dropped support for Windows 3.1. The 16-bit Windows version of PrintOMatic is not available in releases after 1.5.6.

However, the 16 bit version of PrintOMatic 1.6 can still be downloaded and used. This version is unserialized: it does not require any serial number to work. It will safely ignore any serial number you try to register it with.

The 16 bit version of PrintOMatic has all the same commands as the current release, with the exception of the printStage and pageBreak commands.

Download 16-bit PrintOMatic 1.5.6 for Windows

To view this and other technical notes on-line, visit http://www.printomatic.com/tech.cfm.