24 Aug
2012
24 Aug
'12
11:31 a.m.
I was very kindly given a mint, BNIB-in-box PCW9512+ by listmember
Roger Pugh a couple of years ago. The little -known 9512+ replaces the
3" floppies with a more standard 3?", which is handy.
I stil lthink the mechancianl design of the 3" disk is superior to that
of the 3/5" one.
IIRC, the original PCW had a dot matrix printer as did the PCW9256. The
PCW9512+ had a daisywheel printer. The print hammer in the latter used to
break quite often, replacign them was not a diffcult job, and was
something I did for friends from time to time. The symptom of a cracked
hamemr was that the printer would 'go throuh the motions' but nothing
would appear on the paper.
The dot matrix printer conented by a 34 way ribbon cable. The interface
was very low level -- the signals to the printhead and mtoor drivers.
These (mostly?) came from an 8042 mcirocontroller in the main unit The
daisywheel printer connected via a 14 pin (!) DIN plug. The interface was
a custom serial one (not even close to RS232), there was another
microcontrolelr in the printer. I beelvie the Canon BJ10 inkjet printer
was supported on the PCW9512+, but I have never seen one used in that way.
FWIW, I have the service manuals for hte PCW8256/8512, PCW9256 adn
PCW9512+ to hand here.
-tony