Re: Printer cards

[Silicon Sam <SiliconSam@gmail.com>]

On Oct 14, 10:51 pm, Warren Ernst <wer...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Oct 13, 12:46 pm, "Andy Taylor" <andy...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Can anyone identfy the two cards that ive uploaded photos of to my website.
> > I guess that as they are marked Epson, they are some kind of printer
> > interface cards.
>
> >http://www.thetaylorfamily.demon.co.uk/apple/
>
> > Thanks for looking,
>
> > Andy
>
> OK here's my guess as a current Epson "employee" (ok, contractor) and
> former owner of one of these cards:
>
> 1. Epson APL Card. It is definitely NOT directly compatible with
> Grappler cards for graphics. In TimeOut SuperFonts, for example, you
> need to select the Epson APL card as the interface card - choosing the
> Grappler card and printing will just print gibberish, as I recall (it
> has been 20 years, you know). For basic text output, however, you
> might be able to get away with a basic Grappler setting if you have
> software that let's you pick it. It was a relatively basic and
> "unsmart" card in comparison to a Grappler.
>
> 2. I'm guessing the second card is a Wespen Microsystems parallel
> printer card that has a ROM that makes it look like an Epson APL card
> in terms of selecting a driver for it. Not sure, though.
>
> Hope this helps,
> Warr

  The Epson APL card was a no-frills card.  Seemed to work with
anything back in the day.  My only gripe with that card was the cheap-
crap material they made the card of.  One good tug on the cable, and
the card would snap in two pieces.  It was not a fiberglass type
material used by everyone else, but some light brown material that had
no bending properties.  Epson used it a LOT in their cards.  Their old
dot matrix printer motherboards were made of this garbage.

Raymond