[Coco] Printing from DW

[Francis Swygert]

Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2014 11:35:47 -0400
From: Al Hartman <alhartman6 at optonline.net>

In "Turn of the Screw" there is a Parallel Port Cartridge.

If someone made up the board for it, I'd love to build a couple.

Couldn't an OS9/NitrOS9 driver be written for it, and then the printing 
problem would be solved. He already provides patches for DECB.

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I have an even better idea... maybe. Incorporate a parallel to USB chip in the cartridge. The only problem with that is there are few printers with built-in processors for fonts and graphics -- the computer does all that in modern USB printers. So it gets more complicated if you just want to plug in a printer and go. Use one of the micro controllers (Arduino?) to emulate a common printer (Epson something was compatible with all CoCo software) instead. That would work as a serial to USB printer as well, but with DW using the bit banger a cartridge might be a better solution.

 
Frank Swygert
Publisher, "American Motors Cars" 
Magazine (AMC)
For all AMC enthusiasts
www.amc-mag.com