On Wed, Mar 11, 2009 at 5:13 PM, David Griffith <dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu> wrote:
Why did you accumulate Commodore dot-matrix printers
like that in the first
place? ?If they work, I can help you sell them.
If they are 1525 printers, the paper is more collectible than the printer. ;-)
I've owned a few Commodore dot-matrix printers over the years - the
biggest problem I remember with them was that each one was different
enough from the other models that even though they'd all respond to,
say channel 4 on either the IEEE-488 or IEC bus, and you could send
generic strings, all the "features" (the widths, the fonts, the
soft-settable chars, etc.) were unique or nearly unique to that model.
I think I used the 1526 the most of any C= printer before switching to
inexpensive non-C= printers and rigging up my own Centronics cable and
driver. I mostly printed assembler listings anyway, so I didn't miss
the C= graphic chars that my printers couldn't print. I do have a
memory that for what I was doing, the 1526 was a fine printer, but it
was less common than other C= printers, so there was rarely any
published software that knew its quirks.
The next time I want to print something from a C-64 or a PET, I may
just do what it takes to hook up one of my HP laser printers - that's
sufficiently perverse to be entertaining.
-ethan