Ok, got the Perq tapes

[Tony Duell]

On Mon, Apr 27, 2020 at 11:11 PM Fred Cisin via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
>
> On Mon, 27 Apr 2020, Tony Duell wrote:
> > Of course toner cartridges for these printers are getting almost
> > impossible to find now. And I don't think any later Laserjets had a
> > 'VDO' interface option.
>
> Does that mean that if I can dig them out, that somebody would like the
> used CX cartridges that I had accumulated?

They are worth keeping as they can be refilled and are the only way
(that I know of) to keep an original-ish PERQ printer going. Refilling
them is 'interesting', one day I must (re)tell the story of the Toner
and the Toilet.

Incidentally, in the UK, ICL offered some standard-ish
RS232-interfaced dot matrix printers for the PERQ. And an
GPIB-interfaced Versatec V80 electrostatic printer. The latter is
another interesting machine (but I am pretty sure Bob didn't have
one).

> I also probably still have some LaserJet font cartridges.

Which of course are not used with the CX-VDO model (the font
cartridges connect to the formatter board)

>
>
> At the college, we had a LaserJet II (SX) connected to a JLaser board.
> There might be some differences between the CX and SX VDO interface, but
> they seemed to use the same software.

There was a serial command line (host to printer), which the PERQ
didn't use, for things like selecting the single sheet feeder. I think
the SX version added some more commands here, but as I said the PERQ
didn't use that at all.

-tony