On Sat, Dec 29, 2007 at 12:08:15PM +0100, Henk Gooijen wrote:
To: cctalk at
classiccmp.org> Date:...
Another attempt to see if my replies to the list come
over a bit better.
This message looks like the first ones - your text was all formatted
well, but the lines you were quoting were all mashed together into
one line.
The LA180 cable indeed is the BC11S-xx where xx stands
for the length in
feet (25, 50 or 100).
Make sense.
I checked visually, not all 40 pins are used. At both
sides 19 pins are
wired, first 2 pins, then one open and then 17 pins. The print set will
show which pins actually carry signals. Ethan already mentioned that he
used a straight 1:1 flatcable.
It may have had the standard DEC "flipped connector" on one end, but I
think that's just a mechanical convenience to fit easily into each
end, not an electrical difference.
As for someone on the list (don't have the posting in front of me)
mentioning serial versions of the LA-180, with an additional board
inside, yes, I do remember they existed, but 20 years ago, I don't
recall them being common - we always had lots of ports on our DEC
machines, either DZ-11s or Emulex CS-21s or DEC DMF32s - at least
8 ports per machine, unless it was for development, engineering, or
office work - then it was 24-32 ports per machine (so that folks
could have more than one port going to their desk - we never went
the route of terminal servers for a variety of reasons). It would
have been very handy to have a medium-speed wide-carriage printer
on more than one machine at a time - something we _did_ do with LA100s,
albeit at a slower speed.
Parallel printing interfaces are nice when the printer doesn't
migrate much, but when you have a serial infrastructure over a
5000 sq ft building, serial printers are much quicker to
migrate (you don't have to move a card to move the printer).
-ethan
P.S. - here's a thumbnail of the overstrike cat picture I was referring
to -
http://www.threedee.com/jcm/aaa/images/catbig.jpg I must have been
dimly recalling John Foust's "Ancient Alphabetic Art" web page -
http://www.threedee.com/jcm/aaa/index.html
--
Ethan Dicks, A-333-S Current South Pole Weather at 29-Dec-2007 at 13:20 Z
South Pole Station
PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -18.8 F (-28.2 C) Windchill -37.0 F (-38.4 C)
APO AP 96598 Wind 7.0 kts Grid 74 Barometer 686.2 mb (10395 ft)
Ethan.Dicks at
usap.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html