11 Nov
2012
11 Nov
'12
2:24 p.m.
I think a closer comparison might be the Amstrad PCW
printers, which
were directly driven by the computer's logic and had no onboard logic
of their own at all. I don't know enough about the NeXT laser to say
for sure, though.
In a way, yes. In both cases, the major part of the electorncis fro a
'standard' pritner of that type is missing.
The Amstrad PCW pritner interface is essentially the drive signals for
the pritnhead solenoids and stapper motor widings (at least fo the dot
matrix version). There leectroncis in thew printer is jsut the driver stages.
The CX-VDO printe does have rather more electroncis in it than that, but
what it doens;'t have is the formatter board to tapme commands and ata
from the hsot and turn them into the signals to drive
the laser. The
electroncis in a CX-VDO (and the SX-VDO for that matter) is the
low-level stuff to cotnrol the motors (get them running at the right
speed), sequence the clutches and solenoids to feed the paper properly,
cotnro lthe fuser temparature, the laser intensity, and so on. The
interface, as I described last night, is basically a few signals to start
a new page adn then a signal to pulse the laser o nand off.
So in both cases you ahve to genenrate precisely timed pulses at the
interface conenctor to get the printer mechanism to do what you want it to.
-tony