Why Does My Printer Want a Divorce?

[Robert Boucher <boucher1@alumni.texas.net>]

For over 20 years I have used the same IIe (with Zip Chip) and an Epson 
FX 1050 printer on a daily basis. Three days ago I temporarily installed 
an Apicorn parallel printer card to use an Epson 740 (ink jet) printer. 
Now, with either card the 1050 starts to print in the middle of the page 
and prints garbage for a few lines (often without a line feed) and then 
stops. Using a simple BASIC program the printer prints correctly and the 
printer self test prints correctly. The computer seems to be working 
fine without the printer. I have a CFFA card, 1 meg RamFactor, Apple 
High Speed SCSI card connected to a Zip Drive, AE Timemaster card, Video 
7 RGB 80 column card and the two printer cards.

I have tried (not necessarily in this order):

      1. Cleaning the computer and printer.
      2. Changing printer cables.
      3. Reseating the computer chips.
      4. Cleaning all of the card connectors.
      5. Changing the slot location for either printer card.
      6. Adding a line feed in AppleWorks 5.
      7. Trying different AppleWorks files.
      8. Loading AppleWorks and files from a Zip disk.

How do I convince the 1050 nothing happened with the 740? If I can't 
should I ask for sole custody of the extra paper, ribbons, etc. for the 
1050? I might want to marry another one!