3 Feb
2025
3 Feb
'25
12:25 a.m.
On 2/2/25 11:34, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote:
My first personal printer was a Diablo Hitype I with the OEM 12-bit
interface. I used two S100 parallel ports (don't recall the card) and
wrote my own logic-seeking bidirectional driver. Still have the code
somewhere.
While that produced very nice copy, I lusted after the Teletype
DataSpeed 40 line printer. Almost bought one, but got sidetracked by
other shiny baubles.
A guy at work traded me a HUGE Honeywell drum printer for a
Centronics 101.
That printer was so huge and heavy there was NO WAY it could
be in my upstairs computer room. It was part of a key to
tape system that was used as an off-line printer at an
insurance company. I had both the key to tape central unit
and the printer. I dragged a scope down there and ran some
tapes through it while scoping the signals. Then, I made up
a paddle card with 25-pair phone cable and designed an
interface to my Z80 S-100 system. I had a scheme of
overprinting various punctuation to simulate curly braces
and such stuff. 300 LPM printing on a Z80 CP/M system.
Jon