a printer oddity

[Roy J. Tellason]

On Friday 11 April 2008 23:04, tiggerlasv at aim.com wrote:
> Most of the Okidatas from the period (Microline 320, 520, etc.)
> had a standard Parallel port built in on the back of the printer.
> Right next to it is usually a plastic knockout.
>
> If you get the RS232 serial port option for this printer,
> you remove the plastic knockout, and slide the RS232 board
> into the opening.   There is a card-edge connector that
> it mates with.
>
> You don't have to set any switches to use it.

Ok,  then in that respect it's different than my old 92...

> I don't really know if it will let you do "dual porting" or not.
> (i.e., 2 computers printing to it, one via serial, one via parallel.)

I have a major pile of those 3xx printers and no docs on them at all.

> As for the RJ45 adapter; those are fairly common. The serial port probably
> only needs 3 pins for printing,  Ground, TXD, and RXD . .  (7, 2, and 3),
> although they may have included handshaking signals.   Who knows.

Yeah,  a hardware handshake line or two is a nice thing to have.

> A standard serial cable to/from your computer should work,
> as well as a parallel cable.
>
> Documentation should be readily downloadable
> from the Okidata website.

I'll have to have a look,  then.

One other oddity I noticed on that particular printer is a "slot" in the front 
of it.  Might be for some sort of a font cartride maybe?  Darned if I know...

-- 
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"
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