[HECnet] Which is THE dec printer?

[Cory Smelosky]

On Wed, 15 Jan 2014, Dave McGuire wrote:

On 01/15/2014 06:27 PM, Cory Smelosky wrote:
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.

Of course it's proprietary.   You ordered a printer from DEC when you
ordered your computer from DEC.   It was a very different world back then.


True. I don't it's too difficult to adapt adapters, though.

A lot of people (myself included) insisted on direct-in-the-bus
printer controllers when we saw how badly serial printers tanked the
system when we connected them to DZ11s. ;)

Oh I can imagine that.   A dedicated controller would have MUCH higher bandwidth than the <1.5mbitcapable on the DZ11. ;)


                          -Dave



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Cory Smelosky
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