That print technology was pretty common everywhere but at IBM for high
speed line printers. When I was in college the service bureau that
processed our FORTRAN had one that if I remember correctly was made by
Honeywell and featured wavy print lines. The operators told us that
printing graphic was very hard on this printer because if you printed a
whole line of the same character every hammer fired at once, it made an
awful racket and visibly shook the printer.
Paul.
On 2017-07-14 5:02 AM, CuriousMarc via cctalk wrote:
Ah, thanks, I learned something. The HP 2767 is a weird beast - line drum
printer but only 80 columns, from what I glean from hpmuseum.net. David
(Collins), do you have the printer?
Marc
-----Original Message-----
From: J. David Bryan [mailto:jdbr...@acm.org]
Sent: Tuesday, July 11, 2017 11:12 AM
To: CuriousMarc
Cc: Classic Computing List
Subject: Re: HP 12653A line printer interface
Marc,
On Monday, July 10, 2017 at 22:24, CuriousMarc wrote:
I thought I did, but what I have is the HP 12845B Line Printer
interface card, for which I could find the documentation.
Thanks for checking. Yes, that does seem to be the more common card. As
far as I know, the 12653A was used only for the HP 2767 (a rebranded Data
Products 2310), whereas the 12845B was used for a number of other HP
printers.
Reading some more, it is meant for the 2607/261x series of printers,
which apparently use a narrower 7 bit interface (the 12566 is a 16 bit
interface card).
Which is all a bit odd, as the 2767 also uses 7 bits for data. Unlike the
other printers that use differential interfaces, the 2767 uses single-ended
TTL-level (more or less) drivers and receivers, which may explain the use of
the microcircuit-based interface.
The 2767 signal drivers are adjustable for a 3- to 8-volt output level, so
perhaps the 12635A "modification" was to clip the inputs to avoid damaging
the standard microcircuit receivers (7400 TTL with an absolute maximum input
spec of 5.5 V). In the absence of a manual, I was hoping that a photograph
would reveal the modification.
But maybe you can inspire yourself from it.
The existing 2767/12653 simulation was reverse-engineered from the
diagnostic and OS drivers. Although it works, I was hoping for something
more authoritative so that the code could serve as a reference for the
now-extinct hardware.
-- Dave
