Re: Wanted: Silentype printer card for IIe.

[mjmahon@aol.com (Michael J. Mahon)]

Stephen Shaw wrote:

>NO definitely serial (of a sort)
>
>On Fri, 01 Jun 2001 03:07:58 GMT, william strutts wrote:
>
>> There is a place called Discount Computers in Flint Michigan
>> that has Parallel adapters for sale.  I don't know the phone
>> number.  Is it a parallel printer?

The Silentype printer is neither serial nor parallel.  It has a
proprietary connection to its dedicated interface card.

It is analogous to the Disk II--standard mechanism, proprietary
analog card, proprietary link, proprietary interface card.  All
quite beautiful (if you like that sort of thing) but _absolutely_
non-standard.

Just as Woz was disposed to control as much of the hardware
as possible by software running on the Apple processor, so too
was the designer of the Silentype (who was it?).  The Apple
slot firmware controls the stepper motors to advance the paper
and move the print head, and it turns the head's "heaters" on
and off to make dots on thermosensitive paper.  A real hacker's
delight!

-michael

 Email:  mjmahon@aol.com
 Home page:  http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/