[HECnet] Which is THE dec printer?

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2014-01-15 15:27, Cory Smelosky wrote:
On Wed, 15 Jan 2014, Dave McGuire wrote:

On 01/15/2014 06:00 PM, Cory Smelosky wrote:
The LA180 receive-only printer was, I think, a derivative of the
LA36, not the LA120.   The 1976 Peripheral handbook seems to support
that.   Note that there also was an LA35, a receive-only variant of
the LA36.   The difference is that the LA35 had a serial interface
while the LA180 had a parallel (line printer style) interface.

The LA180 has more in common with the LA120 than the LA36.   There is
also a serially-interfaced variant of the LA180, which has a
serial-to-parallel (*NOT* "Centronics" parallel, for others reading
this) converter board mounted internally.

That's...quite interesting.   Why is it parallel internally...

Because the primary intended configuration for those printers is with
dedicated printer controller boards like the LP11, LPV11, and LS11.


Ahhhhh.   Interesting design choice, to be honest.   I bet it was a bit
proprietary though....fast as well.

The interface on the LP11 is extremely close to Centronics. You need to invert a signal or two (I don't remember the details, but I did this many years ago for an LP8 controller). After that, you're all set.

It's much faster than serial, but no speed daemon.

	Johnny