a printer oddity

[Roy J. Tellason]

Some of you may already be aware that I have a whole pile of dot-matrix 
printers kicking around (http://mysite.verizon.net/rtellason/w4s.html has a 
list of them on there),  and in moving some of them yesterday I noticed some 
rather odd things about one of them.

It's an Okidata 391,  one of the few that are wide-carriage,  and it's 24-pin 
as well.  Where before I'd had most of them facing front-outwards I now have 
this one sitting there with the rear facing where I can see it,  and have 
noticed a couple of odd things:

First is that right next to the usual parallel connection there's another 
connector,  a DB25.  That bit seems to be a little loose,  and I'm thinking 
plug-in board maybe?  Something's not quite right.  Anyhow,  I was wondering 
if this was a serial interface adapter,  and if it might be usable in any of 
the other units I have on hand as well.  I have,  unfortunately,  no 
documentation on any of these at the present time.

The other thing is that attached to that connector is a little adapter,  which 
has an RJ-45 socket on the back side of it.  The plug side of it has only a 
small number of the 25 pins actually installed.  If I can figure out a way to 
pop the shell open maybe I'll trace it out,  otherwise I'll probably take the 
ohmmeter approach.  :-)

Was it at all common to use these for serial connections?

Anybody have docs on those 300-series Okidata printers?

-- 
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space,  a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed.  --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James 
M Dakin