Are there any informations / Manuals about the Epson APL B printer interface card? I am a beginner in matters Apple IIe and i want to know how that card works and which printers ( only certain Epsons? ) are compatible to that card.
Anonymous
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I believe I have Two of these Cards, and One Manual....
Let me check and get back to you...
I found the Manual.. Still looking for either Card...
I will see if I can Scan it to Upload it.
MarkO
In general the APL just serves the printers with the 8-bit parallel data to the centronics connector.
So there is no "special function" - except the card has buffer functions like the grappler...
This APL interface was used with any kind of printer with Centronics parallel connection.
It therefor is much more important to get the manual of the used printer!
The manual of the printer displays which kind of control code characters have been used for commands
to the printer ( like bold or italic charset, condensed or not condensed, which character set : US,
french, European or similar - and it also listed the codes used for graphical printing in dot matrix mode )
if hunting for such a printer with centronics connection :
from Epson: FX80,FX85, RX80, RX85, LQ series....
and if from third party manufacturer it´s important to check if the printer is able to work with "emulation mode"
- most printers in those days had the ability by being setup with internal switches to emulate the FX85 or another Epson printer like printers from NEC, Mannesman Tally, OKI, and dozends of other manufacturers ) .....
the only reason for the interface manual is in fact - if the original cable is missing ....
or in the case that the interface offers configuration with DIP switches....
most of the parallel interfaces don´t have such configuration switches...
In such cases it´s required for soldering an replacent of the cable from the interface with the flatrisbon connector
to the centronics connector. This is similar to the problem with the dozends of other printer interface´cards too ....
there was no standard in that days and therefor every flatribbon connector at each interface was different...
so it´s upmost important, when purchasing such a card to have at least a sheet that contains the pinout of the flatribbon connector !
And it´s not a bad idea - if you often use same software - to check in the list of supported printers in the software setup - which kind of printers are supported.... some commercial software even supported laser printers from HP ( which have been common in those days ) like the HP Laser printer 500 and also there it´s the same valid statement: some of the third party laser printer manufacturers offered within their own printers an emulation mode permitting their printers to act like an HP laser printer...
speedyG
Hey Speedy, do these 8-bit parallel interface cards make good controllers for say controlling 8 LED lights/8 transistors/outputting a number from 0-255 ?
If you like to give them such work to do-they will perform in most cases fairly well...
but you should examine the manual of the interface....
Most interfaces perform a correct handshake protocol and will enable you to program
handshaking with the controlled device.... but some of them ( in general the "copy cats" from taiwan have a
"fragmented" handshaking resulting from mistakes while copying the Eprom .....
The performance of handshaking will anyhow be dependent from the content of the EPROM.....
( this of course also means: you are able to write an own EPROM content for the handshaking....
the importance of this is, that in the EPROM there are following contents:
what kind of control codes shall be issued?
what kind of timing ( and delays ) for how many milliseconds at which signals shall be performed
translation table of databits from databus to datawords at centronics plug.....)
That´s also the reason some interfaces don´t even have an EPROM....
that kind of interfaces just passes the databits directly to the port and the
timing is just determined by the delays of the hardware....
and the controller is nearly completely controlled by software...
In such a case you really need also the manual of the interface....
because if you don´t want to connect a printer, but instead control other hardware...
then you should have the manual and it is highly recommended to use a interface card
where the manufacturer listed in the manual the code of the EPROM
( some manufacturers did that at the rear end of the manual )
some of that interfaces had the option to be configuable by an amount of DIP switches ....
for example handshaking with "high"-bit or with "low"-bit....
and to change to modern terms: of corse you might "mistreat" such an interface as
"dialog-partner" with an external board, that has a MCU or PIC "on board" and pass over the
conversation with that device on parallel databus instead of using a serial port....
if you like to - you even can also do serial communications with use of only 4 or 5 bits of the parallel port...
it´s just fairly more slow than regular serial card and it´s dependent to the software you will write....
( but of course such games are restricted at those controllers without EPROM "on board"
or if Eprom is present it´s dependent to the contents of the EPROM....
and in such case of not connecting a printer it´s highly recommended to have
experienced knowledge in assembler programming....
then it would be possible to create a kind of "ampersand" low level software interface,
which may be used from Basic.... similar to use of ampersand techniques used by the Beagle Bros
in some of their software and explained in several publications at for example the nibble magazin....
just remember some of the famous publications out of "Garcia´s circuit cellar"
for example if you like to control a robotic arm or control a toy crane device or some other freak-usage...
the limits are only set by your mind...
the centronics interface protocol offers handshaking by use of the
acknowledge and ready lines....
speedyG
SHartz40@yahoo.com
SHartz40@yahoo.com
http://mirrors.apple2.org.za/Apple%20II%20Documentation%20Project/Interface%20Cards/Parallel/Apple%20II%20Parallel%20Interface%20Card/Manuals/
SpeedyG
[quote=mutant_pie]Hey Speedy, do these 8-bit parallel interface cards make good controllers for say controlling 8 LED lights/8 transistors/outputting a number from 0-255 ?[/quote]
You are probably better off to build a card with a 6522, 6821 or a 8255 on it if you want to control lights. Those will give you more pins and you can easily leave the signals on as long as you want and not have to worry about strobing lines, etc.
You may be able to do what you want with some printer cards, but they really aren't designed for it.
Here's an article that you might find interesting:
https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.3758/BF03203227.pdf
hello softwarejanitorseems you never scanned my former postigs:
https://www.applefritter.com/trackernor did you vist my site:http://www.appleii-box.de/
SpeedyG
[quote=mutant_pie]Hey Speedy, do these 8-bit parallel interface cards make good controllers for say controlling 8 LED lights/8 transistors/outputting a number from 0-255 ?[/quote]
[quote=speedyG]
hello softwarejanitorseems you never scanned my former postigs:
https://www.applefritter.com/trackernor did you vist my site:http://www.appleii-box.de/
SpeedyG
[quote=mutant_pie]Hey Speedy, do these 8-bit parallel interface cards make good controllers for say controlling 8 LED lights/8 transistors/outputting a number from 0-255 ?[/quote]
[/quote]
You've got a lot of stuff out there, but it's too much to sift through without specific pointers to the information being looked for. Maybe you could provide some direct links to relevant articles?
[quote]
You've got a lot of stuff out there, but it's too much to sift through without specific pointers to the information being looked for. Maybe you could provide some direct links to relevant articles?
[/quote]seems you never scanned my former postigs ........
[quote=speedyG]
[quote]
You've got a lot of stuff out there, but it's too much to sift through without specific pointers to the information being looked for. Maybe you could provide some direct links to relevant articles?
[/quote]seems you never scanned my former postigs ........
[/quote]
Why should I? What am I supposed to be looking for? You've got thousands of posts out there.
[quote=softwarejanitor]
[quote=speedyG]
[quote]
You've got a lot of stuff out there, but it's too much to sift through without specific pointers --- ????to the information being looked for. Maybe you could provide some direct links to relevant articles?
[/quote]seems you never scanned my former postigs ........
[/quote]
Why should I? What am I supposed to be looking for? You've got thousands of posts out there
[/quote]have you ever recognized or used the "search this site" field at the right top of ths pages here ???
seeningly not....
[quote=speedyG]
[quote=softwarejanitor]
[quote=speedyG]
[quote]
You've got a lot of stuff out there, but it's too much to sift through without specific pointers --- ????to the information being looked for. Maybe you could provide some direct links to relevant articles?
[/quote]seems you never scanned my former postigs ........
[/quote]
Why should I? What am I supposed to be looking for? You've got thousands of posts out there
[/quote]have you ever recognized or used the "search this site" field at the right top of ths pages here ???
seeningly not....
[/quote]
Now you're just being insulting. I know how to search, but you're still not being helpful. What am I supposed to be looking for? If you think I don't know about parallel cards, I've got several, including an Epson APL.
I also have an APL D printer interface card for my Apple IIe that until now was in the drawer. Although I do not have any Epson 8-bit printer I installed the interface card in slot 1, and I was surprised because none of the hardware test programs detect the card ¿? I tried "Apple IIe diagnostic 2.1", "Computer Inspector 1.0", "Master diagnostics IIe 7.0", "Real software diagnostics" and "XPS Diagnostics 1.05" unsuccesfully. What I'm doing wrong? Do I install some driver from floppy disk maybe? Should a printer be connected to the card in order to be detected?
These cards have an EPROM on them to provide the system with inormation on the card in the slot. If you have any old parallel printer, you could try to test it in BASIC with a PR#1, but I would expect something to read that the slot is occupied.
If you run Apple II Desktop / MouseDesk, the System Information DA should at least say that something is in the slot.
It is easily possible that the EPROM has bit rot though, especially if its window wasn't covered. If you lack a parallel printer, then using a slot for a parallel csrd is both a waste of the slot and a kludge for your PSU.
Do you intend to print anything, using this card?
I was not aware about the Apple II Desktop software, it looks great. I'll take you're advise and we will see if in this way the Printer Card is detected. EPROM window is well covered witth a silvered sticker so, I don't think that this is the problem. On the other hand I agree with you that to have the card connected without a printer makes no sense and there's an additional current charge for the power supply, but when I restored my Apple IIe I completely recapped and checked the power supply and now it's like new so, I'm not affraid for the extra charge because I only have the disk controller and the 80-columns-64K cards. My thinking was that is better to keep the card installed into the computer rather than in a drawer.
Answering your question, as I do not have a printer I do not tried to print nothing. I know that seems silly to install a printer card without having a printer but as I said I prefer to have the card installed into the Apple IIe.
Thank you for the link provided, i found it useful
immob