On Wed, 15 Jan 2014, Dave McGuire wrote:
On 01/15/2014 06:27 PM, Cory Smelosky wrote:
The LA180 has more in common with the LA120 than the LA36. There is
also a serially-interfaced variant of the LA180, which has a
serial-to-parallel (*NOT* "Centronics" parallel, for others reading
this) converter board mounted internally.
That's...quite interesting. Why is it parallel internally...
Because the primary intended configuration for those printers is with
dedicated printer controller boards like the LP11, LPV11, and LS11.
Ahhhhh. Interesting design choice, to be honest. I bet it was a bit
proprietary though....fast as well.
Of course it's proprietary. You ordered a printer from DEC when you
ordered your computer from DEC. It was a very different world back then.
True. I don't it's too difficult to adapt adapters, though.
A lot of people (myself included) insisted on direct-in-the-bus
printer controllers when we saw how badly serial printers tanked the
system when we connected them to DZ11s. ;)
Oh I can imagine that. A dedicated controller would have MUCH higher bandwidth than the <1.5mbitcapable on the DZ11. ;)
-Dave
--
Cory Smelosky
http://gewt.net Personal stuff
http://gimme-sympathy.org Projects
On 01/15/2014 06:27 PM, Cory Smelosky wrote:
The LA180 has more in common with the LA120 than the LA36. There is
also a serially-interfaced variant of the LA180, which has a
serial-to-parallel (*NOT* "Centronics" parallel, for others reading
this) converter board mounted internally.
That's...quite interesting. Why is it parallel internally...
Because the primary intended configuration for those printers is with
dedicated printer controller boards like the LP11, LPV11, and LS11.
Ahhhhh. Interesting design choice, to be honest. I bet it was a bit
proprietary though....fast as well.
Of course it's proprietary. You ordered a printer from DEC when you
ordered your computer from DEC. It was a very different world back then.
A lot of people (myself included) insisted on direct-in-the-bus
printer controllers when we saw how badly serial printers tanked the
system when we connected them to DZ11s. ;)
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
On Wed, 15 Jan 2014, Brian Schenkenberger, VAXman- wrote:
Cory Smelosky <b4 at gewt.net> writes:
On Wed, 15 Jan 2014, Dave McGuire wrote:
On 01/15/2014 01:20 PM, Cory Smelosky wrote:
No receive-only LA120?! ;)
(Is that was the LA180 is? I can't remember what the models number for
the receive-only LA120 was.) I like my printers big. ;)
There is in fact a receive-only LA120. There's one here at my place,
though it belongs to someone else. I've forgotten the model suffix.
I've forgotten it as well. Heh.
The LA180 is one that I've always thought of as an independent device.
It is considerably faster than the LA36 (180 CPS vs. 30 CPS) for
starters...so I'd doubt it was derived from the LA36. But then why
would it have been derived from the LA120, when the LA120 family already
has a print-only version? And it tops out at 120CPS, and prints
bidirectionally...the LA180 is unidirectional. The LA120 is also FAR
"smarter", with runtime-configurable setup options, escape sequence
processing for settings, etc. The LA180 does none of that.
Cory Smelosky <b4 at gewt.net> writes:
On Wed, 15 Jan 2014, Dave McGuire wrote:
On 01/15/2014 01:20 PM, Cory Smelosky wrote:
No receive-only LA120?! ;)
(Is that was the LA180 is? I can't remember what the models number for
the receive-only LA120 was.) I like my printers big. ;)
There is in fact a receive-only LA120. There's one here at my place,
though it belongs to someone else. I've forgotten the model suffix.
I've forgotten it as well. Heh.
The LA180 is one that I've always thought of as an independent device.
It is considerably faster than the LA36 (180 CPS vs. 30 CPS) for
starters...so I'd doubt it was derived from the LA36. But then why
would it have been derived from the LA120, when the LA120 family already
has a print-only version? And it tops out at 120CPS, and prints
bidirectionally...the LA180 is unidirectional. The LA120 is also FAR
"smarter", with runtime-configurable setup options, escape sequence
processing for settings, etc. The LA180 does none of that.
On Wed, 15 Jan 2014, Brian Schenkenberger, VAXman- wrote:
There was a 20ma CL option (serial) if the EIA serial did not suffice.
Schematics for the 20mA loop board are in the printset.
--
Cory Smelosky
http://gewt.net Personal stuff
http://gimme-sympathy.org Projects
On Wed, 15 Jan 2014, Dave McGuire wrote:
On 01/15/2014 06:00 PM, Cory Smelosky wrote:
The LA180 receive-only printer was, I think, a derivative of the
LA36, not the LA120. The 1976 Peripheral handbook seems to support
that. Note that there also was an LA35, a receive-only variant of
the LA36. The difference is that the LA35 had a serial interface
while the LA180 had a parallel (line printer style) interface.
The LA180 has more in common with the LA120 than the LA36. There is
also a serially-interfaced variant of the LA180, which has a
serial-to-parallel (*NOT* "Centronics" parallel, for others reading
this) converter board mounted internally.
That's...quite interesting. Why is it parallel internally...
Because the primary intended configuration for those printers is with
dedicated printer controller boards like the LP11, LPV11, and LS11.
Ahhhhh. Interesting design choice, to be honest. I bet it was a bit proprietary though....fast as well.
-Dave
--
Cory Smelosky
http://gewt.net Personal stuff
http://gimme-sympathy.org Projects
On 01/15/2014 06:00 PM, Mark Wickens wrote:
I searched for DEC LP27 printer and came across this treasure chest:
http://www1.appstate.edu/~jmm/operations.tour.html
Not sure it'll be the same since the last update in 1994!
Oh, the PORN!!
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
On Wed, 15 Jan 2014, Dave McGuire wrote:
On 01/15/2014 01:20 PM, Cory Smelosky wrote:
No receive-only LA120?! ;)
(Is that was the LA180 is? I can't remember what the models number for
the receive-only LA120 was.) I like my printers big. ;)
There is in fact a receive-only LA120. There's one here at my place,
though it belongs to someone else. I've forgotten the model suffix.
I've forgotten it as well. Heh.
The LA180 is one that I've always thought of as an independent device.
It is considerably faster than the LA36 (180 CPS vs. 30 CPS) for
starters...so I'd doubt it was derived from the LA36. But then why
would it have been derived from the LA120, when the LA120 family already
has a print-only version? And it tops out at 120CPS, and prints
bidirectionally...the LA180 is unidirectional. The LA120 is also FAR
"smarter", with runtime-configurable setup options, escape sequence
processing for settings, etc. The LA180 does none of that.
