Nice reverse-engineering work!
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
On Feb 27, 2013, at 2:47 PM, "Claunch,Carl" <Carl.Claunch at gartner.com>
wrote:
I have it all worked out and tested.
It was a parallel IO board using an 8255A, with TTL signals driving the two stepper
motors and pen solenoid. TTL 5V signal to one of the four poles of the uniphase stepper
motors moves it 3.6 degrees, the operator buttons are reported as inverted TTL signals, no
protocols or intelligence at all in the plotter so my job was dead simple. The 20 wire
ribbon cable is the six button inputs, the eight stepper motor outputs and the pen
solenoid output, plus a ground return. The operator buttons, for example to move the pen
to the right, are sent to the computer whose driver would have to step the motor, rather
than occurring locally in the plotter. Did I mention that it had zero digital logic chips
or intelligence? Nine transistor drivers, a power supply and a few pullup and current
limiting resistors, plus the steppers, solenoid, switches and buttons.
If anyone else ever needs one, I have documented the cable assignments here so that they
are searchable on the web. I will also mention the S-100 bus card assignments to the 8255A
ports in case someone wants to use it with a retro machine through the interface card.
Pins 1, 2, 4 and 5 are not connected.
Pin 3 is ground
Pin 6 is inverted TTL input, status of the "start/enter" button on the cover,
port PA5
Pin 7 is the central "fast" button for pen movement, inverted TTL input, port
PA4
Pin 8 is the "pen right" button, inverted TT input L, port PA3
Pin 9 is the "pen left" button, inverted TTL input, port PA2
Pin 10 is the "pen down" (actually rotate drum and paper up) button, inverted
TTL, port PA1
Pin 11 is the "pen up" button, inverted TTL input, port PA0
Pin 12 is the output to activate the pen solenoid so that the pen is marking the paper,
TTL 5V to activate, port PB4
Pin 13 is the output for one pole of the drum movement stepper motor, TTL 5V on this and
0 on the other three, port PC3
Pin 14 is the output for a second pole of the drum movement stepper motor, TTL 5V
activates, port PC2
Pin 15 is the output for a third pole of the drum movement stepper motor, TTL 5V
activates, port PC1
Pin 16 is the output for a fourth pole of the drum movement stepper motor, TTL 5V
activates, port PC0
Pin 13 is the output for one pole of the pen left-right movement stepper motor, TTL 5V on
this and 0 on the other three, port PB3
Pin 14 is the output for a second pole of the pen left-right movement stepper motor, TTL
5V activates, port PB2
Pin 15 is the output for a third pole of the pen left-right movement stepper motor, TTL
5V activates, port PB1
Pin 16 is the output for a fourth pole of the pen left-right movement stepper motor, TTL
5V activates, port PB0
For those not familiar with stepper motors, they have four poles each with a ring of 25
'teeth' that will attract a permanent magnet on the rotor. The four rings are
staggered so that in total there are 100 positions around the dial - 3.6 degrees per step.
Energize one pole and the magnet is held to the nearest tooth of that pole. Drop that pole
and activate another whose tooth is adjacent and the rotor swings one position to hold at
the tooth on that pole ring. Interface is a simple four bit circular shift register with
one high and three low bits circulating in the pattern. Shift it once and the motor moves
one step in the associated direction.
Carl
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