[Coco] Re: Coco printer primer...

[Brian Blake]

Not trying to whip a dead horse, here, but does this sound doable:

I have access to an Okidata 320T (OS compatible down to MS DOS, and emulates IBM ProPrinter III, Epson Fx-80, ANSI and Oki Microline) with a RS-232C serial adapter that works great. Would making a serial cable to work with the 'bit banger' port (do not have a RS-232c cart yet) be difficult? I know on a PC this wouldn't be a problem, but, using the four pins from the b/b port to a 25 pin sounds too easy of a solution...

Thanks,
Brian


Torsten Dittel <Torsten at Dittel.info> wrote: > If you get a serial to parallel adapter for the coco, you can use any
> print with a parallel port that doesn't require a driver to use.  If a
> printer supports MSDOS, it should work.

The question is if the Printer is "talking" any "language" e.g. ESCP/2,
PCL6 or PostsSript Level 3. Most modern cheap printers (which are USB
only anyway) have no own "intelligence", they can't generate fonts
themselves. Those printers are called "GDI printers" because the
"Graphical Device Interface" is doing all the logical work (like in a
window of Word), e.g. rasterizing the TrueType fonts. All data is
transmitted as bitmap graphics to the printer.

Many mid price laser printers emulate ESCP/2 and/or an IBM ProPrinter
which was common for dot matrix needle printers in the CoCo era, so
using them with CoCo software should not be a problem.

Best regards,
Torsten


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