Hi,
Recently I have obtained an imagewriter II printer and hooked it up to my Apple IIe via the SSC.
When I print something I drew from Mousepaint, the print starts off well but is always cut short, ending with some garbage characters. (please see attached pictures)
Likewise, when I print a single page from The Print Shop, it also prints well until the end – the lower frame of a single page message is cut off similarly. (sorry, no pictures)
The single line message/ test print using Print Shop, prints well.
When I printed a “test page”, imagewriter's own internal test page, it appears to print well.
What is going on here?
I’m really an amateur and will very much appreciate the help or advice.
Thank you!
StevenL
My Apple IIe Setup:
Slot 0: 80COL/64K Memory Expansion Card
Slot 1: Super Serial Card II – Imagewriter II
Slot 4: Mouse Interface Card
Slot 5: Mockingboard V2.2
Slot 6: Disk II Interface Card – WDrive (KBOOHK)
Slot 7: SoftSP Card - KBOOHK
I'm sure other users will have more detailed suggestions: I haven't used this type of printer since middle school.
One thing that is obvious to me, however, is that the data transmitted to the printer is becoming corrupted at some point further down the page (the interpretation of graphics as text implies that data was lost). The lower page position suggests strongly that static electricity is building up during printing and causing data corruption. Check for any loose ground wires and make sure that the printer and computer are both adequately grounded.
An important first test to narrow down the cause is to print the page, which does cause the issue, multiple times. Does the fault always occur at a bit different places, or is it deterministic and always exactly the same?
A sporadic issue would indicate a hardware defect or transmission problem. A deterministic effect suggests some kind of compatibility issue (misiterpretation of comtrol characters / graphics data etc).
Thank you robespierre for your help. It's a good suggestion to look into the electricity.
Unfortunately, I'm not really sure how to check for adequate grounding to the 2 devices. I did run through the wires and and plug-ins to make sure things are properly connected.
My setup is plugged to a step-down electric converter because our local electricity is 240V. The printer and computer seems to power up and down well.
I also test printed - 1. test print page (which looks OK), 2. a printout from Banner Mania (which looks OK, except that the print separated near the site of the perforated paper going to the next page), 3. a test print page from AppleWorks 2.0 which looks OK.
Test print.jpg
Banner Mania.jpg
Appleworks test print.jpg
Thank you MacFly for the troubleshooting idea.
This is what I got. (see attached)
Printouts with AppleWorks appear OK, so at this point I can get text printed. It just seems that graphics printing from Print Shop and Mousepaint is wonky.
I am thinking whether it's WDrive (where the programs are run out of, as Drive 1) or improper software version that is causing my issues.
Maybe, it's even the printer switches? But this I think is less likely because (in my other reply to another member) prints from AppleWorks look OK.
Mousepaint printed twice.jpg